For the second time in a week, students and staff at South Eugene High School have been evacuated following a telephoned threat.
According to a news release from the Eugene Police Department, a caller made a bomb threat at 9:32 Wednesday morning. Four minutes later, a separate call came from a "person who sounded male." Police said the caller claimed to be "at the school in a bathroom with a shotgun and handgun."
The school was initially placed into lockdown. Police said they "completed initial clearing of the building" by 10:17 a.m. and then the students and staff were evacuated. No evacuation point was announced, but photos taken by a SEHS student on the scene showed students congregating on the school's athletic fields.
Shortly before noon, Eugene police gave the "all clear." But by then, classes had been canceled for the rest of the day.
"An interior and exterior perimeter search is complete with no bomb or threat found," officials said in a news release.
It follows a similar threat and evacuation made to the school exactly one week prior on May 3. No injuries were reported in that situation.
The new threat comes the same day that police in Marion County advised the public to avoid Jefferson High School in the town of Jefferson due to "an active threat investigation." No injuries were reported.
And it comes one day after schools in rural Mapleton were placed on lockdown after students reported seeing an armed individual on the edge of campus and reported hearing a gunshot after the individual walked into the nearby woods. No students were injured, and the Lane County Sheriff's Department said they do not believe there is an ongoing threat to the public.
"A substantial search of the area (near the Mapleton school) failed to locate any armed persons or other suspicious conditions," according to a press release from the Lane County Sheriff. "Investigators contacted an area resident who had been conducting residential repairs with a loud nail gun at approximately the same time that the possible gun shots were heard. It remains unclear if the person spotted by the track was armed with a firearm or carrying another item at the time that they were observed by students."