LA MESA, Calif. (KGTV) -- The series of recent shootings in California has communities on high alert. So much so, that La Mesa Police responded to what ended up being a false alarm at Lemon Avenue Elementary School Tuesday.
"I thought it was a drill because everybody said it was a drill, but I was thinking this is not a drill, this is not a drill," said a confused Charlie Klein.
The 5-year-old student was inside Lemon Avenue Elementary waiting for her mom to pick her up at the end of her school day but her mom couldn’t get to her.
"I said, ‘I need to pick up my kid,’ and he said, ‘You can't go there,’ and I just looked up and there's just police swarming the whole school," said mom Heather Klein.
Klein pulled out her phone and took a video of police surrounding the school, but what she was documenting she didn’t understand until later.
"They pushed the button on it to alert the police that there was an active shooter, but the parents didn't know, and the police didn't know, so the police came in like it was an actual active shooter and I think that's what was scary," said Heather.
A source close to the school confirmed a janitor called 911 to report that there was an active shooter. The reason he thought that was because no one told him the school was having an after-school safety training and fire drill to test out the new security features from recently passed Measure V.
The good thing is the training/drill worked, but the bad thing was not everyone was in the loop.
"We all went to pick up our kids and we were all kind of half-joking that we have PTSD from it," said Klein. "We are grateful it wasn't an active shooter, but you're walking around with police officers and gear and big guns and holding them and you just having a moment of, ‘What, why?’"
"One of the good guys came up and said everything is good. We looked all around the neighborhood, everything is good, so I went home and I was calming down," said Charlie.
La Mesa Police told ABC 10News when its special active shooter response team arrived and learned that the active shooter protocol alarm had been inadvertently activated, they confirmed there were no threats and lifted the lockdown within minutes.
