On March 12, 2024 students and staff at Taft Charter High School went into some panic after a threatful Instagram story was posted around 9 a.m. by an anonymous account. The story was of a violent threat being made towards the school. The next story the anonymous account posted was of a gun. Many students rushed to inform the administration and were unaware of what to do.

The school notified parents for the first time at 9:15 a.m, this message was short, just letting parents know that they were taking every precaution possible into place.

During nutrition, many students started to panic even more and took things further by jumping the school’s fence. Many were able to make it to the other side and even tried to help their classmates. Some students just stood around yelling at people saying they shouldn’t be doing that, or many were recording and laughing.

The next message that was sent out to parents was at 10:58 a.m., this call consisted of letting parents know that the school wasn’t on lockdown, but was under a “shelter in place”. Students were not allowed to leave the classroom unless the office called them out. They were then told they wouldn’t proceed to their next class unless instructed otherwise.

Around this time, hundreds of parents were rushing to the school, causing a big commotion. Many parents said they were waiting in line for over 40 minutes just to pick up their kid(s). News channels were outside the school trying to get information from staff and officers if this was a real possible threat or just some sort of joke. Students were stuck in their homeroom for roughly almost 2 hours before they were able to leave to use the restroom around 12:10 p.m. They were instructed to leave the classroom in pairs. No other updates were made to students and the last phone call was sent to parents at 2:30 p.m.

Later that night, at 5:04 p.m., parents got an email informing them that they were made aware of the threat and that law enforcement had identified a person of interest. They proceeded to say that the school would remain open and that Police officers would patrol the area.

Students still felt like more support and backup were needed. Teachers commented on how many students didn’t take the threat seriously. They were busy calling their friends, meeting up in the hallways creating more crowds. Teachers added that they felt like students were putting themselves in more danger.

“I’m sure many students won’t show up tomorrow and I probably won’t either. It’s just a crazy thing to open up Instagram and see threats being made online”, a student told us. They couldn’t be farther from the truth. Taft’s attendance rate on March 13, 2024, was 46%, which means a little over 1000 students didn’t show up the next day.
Many teachers, when asked for the story, have been reluctant to respond.

Mr. Lasky, English Teacher at Taft, noted, “I think the reaction from students and parents was overboard. An unsubstantiated threat was made, sure, but the campus responded quickly to control the situation. Panic didn’t set in until the parents flooded and overwhelmed the staff.”

As of 3/13/24 at 5 pm, LAUSD said in a statement that the person who posted the threat was identified and was taken into custody. This person was not a student at Taft Charter High School. No other information was released about the person. This helped students feel at ease to return to school, helping the school reach 92% of attendance on March 14, 2024.