Firearm incident at Southside Community School leaves parents worried about school’s response

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Veronica Sanchez is nervous. She’s nervous because of an incident that happened at her son’s school Southside Community School.

She’s also considered enrolling her son in online school after a recent incident where a student brought a firearm on campus.

“My son has been scared. He didn’t want to go to school no more,” Sanchez said.

The incident happened on February 24. Her son told staff at the school that another student showed him firearms.

“They should’ve put the school like in alert first and put it on lockdown,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez said the school only sent parents a message after she called them. She said they sent the message around 9 P.M.

The message said there was an incident on campus but because of privacy issues they could not specify what it was. It also said they were taking safety precautions and that the student in question wouldn’t be allowed back.

However, a message sent to staff did confirm that there was a gun incident on campus. Parents were not specifically notified about that in the version of the message sent to them.

“It’s just very disappointing the way they managed stuff,” Sanchez said.

Another anonymous parent reporter Andrew Christiansen spoke to told him she contacted the principal but she did not get a response.

“I feel frustrated because they’re supposed to let us know, not hours later, the moment it happened,” she said.

The day after the incident the school did not have any classes. The superintendent told Christiansen they would have TPD on campus, which Sanchez confirmed. Christiansen followed up with the superintendent a few days ago, and while she did text him back, she did not answer any questions regarding safety on campus.

Still upset with the situation, Sanchez feels like law enforcement should be there more often.

“They should be there everyday…and the kids could be safe,” she said.

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Andrew Christiansen is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before joining the team, Andrew reported in Corpus Christi, Texas for KRIS6 News, Action 10 News and guest reported in Spanish for Telemundo Corpus Christi. Share your story ideas with Andrew by emailing andrew.christiansen@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.