Well handled Batavia!

Although school was disrupted this morning at Batavia High School, the district and the Batavia police department handled this situation really well.   Initially there were reports that an unknown male was entering the high school with what appeared to be a rifle.  It was later realized that in fact that male had a baseball bat sticking out of his bag and there was no threat to anyone’s safety.

This is the new normal for America but these are the sort of situations that I grew up with as a child in England.  During the seventies and early eighties the IRA – an Irish terrorist organization were constantly planting bombs around London.  In addition to planting actual bombs they also called in hundreds of bomb threats disrupting lives but often turning out to be hoaxes.   British people became very vigilant and if they noticed any thing out of the ordinary they would always speak up.  When I worked in London I would take the underground train to work every day.  If anyone saw a bag that wasn’t obviously attached to a particular person you would speak up and ask around “Is that yours?”   99% of the time there was never any danger  but no one ever complained about being evacuated of being asked if a bag was there’s, because we had seen the tragic results of not speaking up.

So the person who thought they saw a rifle walking into a high school today should not feel bad for making a mistake.  They were just being vigilant which is what we all have to be these days.  It is always better to err on the side of safety, particularly when it comes to our kids.