4 detained after gunshots reported near Bethesda-area high school, schools placed in 'secure' status

Just minutes ago, we got word that the Montgomery County Police Department is still investigating the validity, to our understanding, of the report of shots fired. Two officers were dispatched just after 12 noon to the 6600 block of Rockledge Drive for the report of shots fired. To our understanding, no injuries have been reported thus far. Tom Fitzgerald joining us back here in studio. And, Tom, we just got word from the desk. Apparently, it appears as though that four people perhaps have been detained. We know that several schools have been placed in secure status as a precaution. And that being the key, Tom, in this case, the secure portion. Yeah, you know, what concerns me about this as well, too, is this is two in two days. You know, we had this happen just yesterday over, you know, Prince George's County at Parkdale High School. So whatever is going on in the environment right now near these schools raises a lot of concerns, obviously, for the students who have to put up with this. Because you and I are not all that far apart each other in age. Right. But, you know, you think of these kids that, you know, go to school. They're there to learn. Sure. They're not there to be locked down in their classroom during the day. But because of the environment we're in right now, this is a necessary precaution. when you have this kind of stuff going on out in the street right now so you know that affects their learning yep that affects their day that affects their mood when they go home at night to their parents so you know it's it's a build-up of trauma over the years when these kids put up with this from kindergarten to senior year sure many cases they have a history of that i never did this once nor did i when i was going to school these kids now have to put up with this almost constantly at schools throughout not only our region but throughout our country right now and and it is too bad the good news about this is that there are security measures in place to deal with these situations but even then we have seen instances where maybe that has not worked as well previous incident i was talking about apparently one of the suspects was able to get into the school building at one point so um these systems are in place to keep people safe and when they work they work very well but it also raises questions about do we need more security at our schools around our shores um you know fortunately it sounds like whatever was going on here with these four individuals was outside of these buildings but you know uh your mind races you know when you start thinking about what could happen uh when you've got children inside and children who are trying to learn yeah we should make mention of the schools that happen to be affected uh Walter Johnson High School North Bethesda Middle School Ashburton Elementary school Wingate Elementary School Tilden Middle school Lux Manor Elementary School and Rock Terrace School uh yet again just in a secure position the definition of that uh students and staff brought inside exterior doors are locked and normal school activities continue indoors and so perhaps for most of the students they don't even know something is going wrong that can very well be argued you know my experience with with with my child was they know what's going on uh you know maybe not the you know the younger children but you know in high schools the older children uh many times when we had a situation at my daughter's school they were quite aware and um you know the the response time to this seems to be extremely fast sure today and the fact that they were able to get uh this secure status in place quickly is a good thing because you know you don't want beautiful day outside yeah you know um you don't want obviously kids out on a playground when something like this is going on you want them inside a classroom you want inside a building you want them in a place where you know staff teachers the management of the school is able to kind of keep them secure until the Montgomery County Police in this case were able to do their job which they appear to have been able to do today and uh hopefully bring this to a close yeah two things here one producer Joey keep an eye on the wire let us know just alert us if we uh find out any new information and two for you Tom obviously and you pointed this out we now live in a day and age where i hate to say it but children and or school students dealing with something like this it's become a thing of the norm you sir or a father i mean to to think that you are now put in a position where this is perhaps a conversation one would have at the dinner table what to do uh what should what could unfold in what well quite honestly what you would feel if that happened i remember when sandy hook happened and i'm not trying to draw any parallels between sandy hook and this incident happened today but you know that they were back to back my daughter was in kindergarten same age as some of those kids that were victims of sandy hook um and And that, I don't say that to extrapolate the connection there, but it was just a fact. And, you know, we had to have a conversation in, you know, in my family about whether or not we were going to let my daughter know about what had happened. Because when your kid starts going to school, the world starts having itself felt as far as their information stream. Yeah. So we were kind of, you know, talking between the two of us. Should we tell her about this or should we just have to deal with it if she comes across it somehow or hears about it? Ultimately, we decided she was too young to handle that kind of information, so we didn't do that. But, you know, I do worry about, you know, the cumulative effects on children as they go through a lifetime of education. And, Joey, you probably put up with a bunch of these yourself. I mean, you know, it becomes a regular thing. We had fire drills. They have lockdowns, you know? Yeah. Yeah. What I have to add from the wire is that the at 12, 10 p.m., the response started. So we are in the second hour of it. I went to three of these schools, Wingate, North Bethesda and Walter Johnson. This is really a whole cluster, a whole neighborhood. When a secure status is called in a whole group of schools. What does that mean, as opposed to just one school being the subject of a police presence? I can tell you, as a reporter, if I'm getting dispatched to a place that is on lockdown, that tells me that there is an incident at the school. When there is a cluster of schools like this that school officials are telling us are in secure status, that tells me, if I'm arriving at that scene, that there is something in the neighborhood. you know as a precautionary step like i said if they're you know looking for somebody in regards to a violent incident and something like that you don't want kids out on the playground you don't want them you know doing a a planting out front or any other kind of activity that you might normally do on a day like this which is gorgeous outside so if you were a teacher why wouldn't you want you know kids to have some time outside today so when you get into a situation like that they they are two pretty specific uh pieces of information if it's a lockdown it generally has something to do at that school or the schools that are locked down because of it a secure mostly means they kind of just want to bring everybody inside for a while until whatever gets sorted out on the street gets sorted out and yet again correct me if i'm wrong but at last count i believe seven schools all together uh happen to be affected by this the good news as you pointed out earlier, Fitz, is that to our understanding, at least four people have been detained, and so that's reinforcing information that one would want to hear if you happen to be a parent. The other thing parents are going to want to know is more information, and a lot of it quickly, because I can tell you a lot of these situations we've had, you remember the Thomas Wooten incident a couple of years ago, the information stream just did not come out of those school officials quickly enough, you know, it led to parents going down there with their cars to pick up their kids. Sure. That was going on. There were roads closed off. I don't get the sense of any of that going on in this situation right now. But, you know, when you're a parent and you hear something like this involved in your kid's school, you want to know as much as you can as quickly as you can. Right. I mean, where should parents go to hear about dismissal times right because we're just you know probably under an hour from when that's going to start being a question the Walter Johnson the traffic loop you see there is usually full at dismissal when where would we typically hear it in situations like these yeah something uh we will many parents are pondering right now uh as this continues to unfold it is definitely a fluid situation and something we will keep a close eye on here's what we'll do we'll take a quick break We'll regroup. We'll check in with the news desk to see if we have any more information to provide you. And if so, we'll do so on the flip side of this break. It's the live zone. We'll be right back.