On Oct. 23, two armed men were arrested in the Brentwood village, an area immediately surrounding both the Archer School for Girls and the Brentwood School.
The incident elicited different responses from the two different schools. Brentwood went on lockdown for 15 minutes, according to Brentwood School Director of Communications Shirley Blake. Archer did not go on lockdown.
Senior lead officer Maria Gray explained the situation in an email interview, “It was a joint effort between LAPD and FBI that started elsewhere in the city and resulted in a following of the suspect– which just happened to terminate in that vicinity.”
She further explained, “The suspect was taken into custody without incident. No shots fired, no injuries.”
Janet Lyon, who manages security and safety planning at Archer, explained that the event did not go through normal procedures. When police went into the village to respond to the situation, they yelled over to a parking attendant at Brentwood, which is how they knew to go on lockdown. Because the situation ended so quickly, Archer was not notified by the police immediately, according to Lyon.
“We were notified by a student receiving a text message after which we immediately contacted our police liaison and were given the facts,” she said.
At the point that Archer spoke to the police, the suspect had already been apprehended and Brentwood’s lockdown had ended.
She said, “If we thought we were in danger we would go on lockdown.”
Shirley Blake described Brentwood’s choice to go on lockdown in an email interview. She said, “All activities and practices were suspended as everyone gathered in the gym for the lockdown. 15 minutes later, after the FBI arrested two suspects and assured our Head of School, Dr. Mike Riera, that all was safe, we released our students back to their various activities and practices.”
Gray wrote that “LAPD served as support for this investigation— but suffice it to say that it ended well with the bad guy off the street.”
Lyon assures the Archer community that “we are prepared,” saying, “we will be drilling for lockdown soon… we discussed that situation in a safety committee and (not as a direct result of the incident) upcoming discussions about lockdowns will take place.”
