Northwest Academy Successful in Lockdown Situation

On February 14, a man was confronted at gunpoint by two policemen outside of Northwest Academy on the corner of Main Street and 12th Avenue. He was searched and eventually released after questioning. During this time, faculty and students underwent a lockdown procedure since guns were drawn.

Clio McCormick, a freshman, was about to go out to lunch when she noticed something strange was happening.

“I saw this guy who looked like a hitchhiker with a big backpack standing on the curb, then I saw a police car and I thought that the police were checking in with the guy,” McCormick said. “Then I heard a police officer say, ‘Get on the f*****g ground.’”

At this point she decided to come back inside and tell college counselor Julia Cain, who was sitting at the front desk.

After seeing the incident, Middle School Coordinator Rachael Torchia and Dean of Students David Wagstaff told students to get into the theater. After all the kids moved into the theater, Torchia called the other Northwest Academy buildings (such as the Buchan Building) to make sure that no students came across the street.

“We got everybody into the theater in 50 seconds, and it took 30 seconds to stop all the movement from the Buchan building to here,” Wagstaff said.

Even though there was no real danger to the students, Wagstaff said that it was a great learning experience to see how well the system designed to protect students in a dangerous situation worked.

Northwest Academy’s lockdown policy is to lock all doors and keep all students away from windows and keep them there until the teachers know that it is safe.

“It was good for us because we got to exercise a kind of drill, a lockdown drill, in this case real, even though the danger was remote, and see how we did,” Wagstaff said.

Head of School Mary Folberg said she was very happy with the way the staff handled the situation.

“The police never came to the door to tell us that we should lock everybody down, but the staff just very wisely did so anyway and got everybody out of harm’s way,” Folberg said.

No one quite knows why the man was confronted at gunpoint, but spectators witnessed the police take his backpack and pour out its contents. What looked like prescription bottles fell out. After police questioned the man, they let him go. Portland Police declined to comment for this story.