Creepy Clown Threat Causes Mass Student Exodus From Chaparral High School

TEMECULA, CA — The order of the day was chaos Friday morning as frantic parents attempted to evacuate their children from the Chaparral High School campus. As of 9:15 a.m. a traffic jam barred entry to the school, with cars moving at a crawl as people tried to enter and exit the scene.

Laura Boss, public information officer for Temecula Valley Unified School District, kept parents informed through Facebook, alerting them that though threats had been made, the school was not on lockdown at any time.

"Many students have already been picked up by parents. Due to the disruption of this morning’s social media threat continuing with an instructional day is not an option," Boss stated. "As a result, we have developed a reunification/release plan that we need parents to assist us with."

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Starting at 10:45 a.m., remaining students will be removed from their classrooms on campus and transferred to the gym.

"In order for students to be released to go home, we need students to have verification from their parent that they can be released," Boss stated.

Information on student release was given on Facebook.

"We will be hosting students in the gym through the rest of the school day, but obviously education is impacted and no learning in the classroom will occur," Boss said in an interview.

On Twitter, an individual said that someone claimed to have explosives and clown masks. They referenced the school shooting at Columbine, saying, "Good luck surviving the new Columbine."

Temecula Unified School District did not take that as a laughing matter, working with Temecula Police to get the students safely removed from school and to get the incident handled.

Parents were informed immediately through email and social media.

"The threat we received stated that the action at 10 a.m. was against the 400 and 700 building," Boss said. "We moved students from those buildings to investigate, but obviously, nothing was found."

Parents who would stop to discuss the matter weighed in on the threat to the school, and the seriousness of missing a day versus having an incident occur when they could have helped. For mother Susie Williams, it was a no-brainer.

"I'm getting her home, and I'm going back to work," she said. "At least I know that my daughter will be safe."

"The last message I got was that something was going to happen at 10 a.m.," mother Lisa Kellogg said. "It seemed extra severe, that there were extra police on campus and that the staff suggested we pick the children up."

One mother and son, Lisa and Matthew Kellogg, stopped to talk about the evacuation.

"I've had kids at Chaparral for five years," Lisa Kellogg said. "This is the first time I've ever heard anything like this. I just wanted to get my kid out of there. It was fight or flight for me."

Her son, Matthew, was ready to go. "There was an imminent feeling of threat," he said. He texted with his mother and coordinated getting his pass from the office, for pickup.

That story was the same for many families, including some parents who worked out carpools taking students off campus. One father was worried for his daughter, yet said, "it's most likely a hoax."

Though he was escorting his daughter and two friends from campus, at the request of their families, the girls were not getting a free day.

"They're going home to pull weeds," he said.

Students leaving the campus were on their phones, texting with friends, but there was visible tension, articulated by one teenager."They were just like tweeting all this stuff," she said in interview. "It made me shaky, I wanted to leave."

A Chaparral High School cheerleader, Hailey Williams, and mother Susie, were both relieved to get her off campus.

"I was in the 700 building when it was evacuated," Hailey said. "There were parents outside screaming. It was really scary."

Photos by Ashley Ludwig