Hoax Phone Call Triggers Shelter-in-Place at Three Clovis Schools

A threatening phone call received at Clovis East High School during lunch hour Monday put the entire Reagan Educational Center complex under shelter-in-place for most of the afternoon, disrupting the school day for students at Clovis East, Reyburn Intermediate, and Reagan Elementary before Clovis Police determined the call was a hoax.

The call came in around 1:25 p.m., according to Clovis Unified officials, while students at both Clovis East and Reyburn were at lunch. Staff immediately moved students to classrooms, and by around 2:20 p.m. the district announced students were being relocated under adult supervision to the school gyms. Clovis Unified Police Department had requested assistance from the Clovis Police Department at approximately 12:45 p.m., according to Clovis Police spokesperson Ty Wood, though that timestamp conflicts with the 1:25 p.m. call time reported by the district and has not been formally reconciled.

Reagan Elementary, which sits adjacent to the Clovis East campus, was placed under shelter-in-place to reduce outdoor activity while officers were on site. That campus was the first cleared, at 2:48 p.m. Parents were barred from entering the grounds and directed to use the regular pick-up and drop-off lanes in the parking lot. Students who normally walk home were held in the multipurpose room until a parent arrived to collect them. All after-school activities at Reagan Elementary were canceled, with the exception of the Expanded Learning Club.

Clovis East and Reyburn remained under the order for more than two additional hours. Clovis Police lifted the shelter-in-place at approximately 4:06 p.m., and a message to families around 4:09 p.m. confirmed police had cleared the campus. Students were released in phases, pushing dismissal roughly 45 minutes past the normal 3:20 p.m. end time at Clovis East. After-school activities at both campuses proceeded as scheduled.

The shelter-in-place also affected attendees of the Latino Success Conference, which had drawn high school students from across Clovis Unified, including alternative education students, to the Clovis East campus. The conference had been scheduled to end at 1:20 p.m., but participants were held on site until the order was lifted.

Clovis Unified said in a statement: "Though this call had hallmarks of a hoax, we take any possible safety concern seriously and are exhausting every measure to confirm no threat exists to students." Wood told the Fresno Bee he was unable to provide additional details about the nature of the threat, but noted that agencies nationwide, including those in Clovis, have seen a significant increase in swatting-type calls in recent years. He said Clovis Police have grown more efficient at responding to such calls precisely because of how frequently they now occur.

Monday's incident is the third time in roughly five months that a Clovis Unified campus has been disrupted by a threatening call. Last October, Clovis High School was placed under a two-hour lockdown after an anonymous out-of-state caller threatened a possible shooting; earlier the same month, Clovis North High School was placed under a shelter-in-place order following another threatening call. No arrests or charges have been reported in connection with Monday's incident at the Reagan Educational Center.