We are on a lock down. It might be a drill idk. We heard sirens. I'm scared. I love you so much.
Heather Powell looked down at her phone around 8:30 a.m. to the five messages above and an emoji representing fear.
Her 12-year-old daughter, Sophie, was at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School on Wednesday in her social studies class when a teacher announced a school-wide lockdown. While primarily a high school, MLK also includes a middle school.
The FBI is now investigating the threatening call that led to the lockdown. This is just the latest hoax called into Nashville locations over the last week — including the Nashville International Airport, the Hard Rock Cafe, the AT&T building, Hunters Lane High School and a police precinct. Metro Police released little information over the weekend when threats were called into two downtown locations as well as the airport, a police precinct or Hunters Lane High School. Police said they didn't comment on those threats in order to avoid copycat crimes.
Several officers responded to MLK this morning, including some in SWAT and tactical gear.
Sophie, I love you. Let me know what's happening please.
Sophie doesn't mind admitting she was scared, even as she pressed her lilac-painted thumbnails into each other as she talked about what school was like on Wednesday. This middle school volleyball player — who loves reading and her beagles — got in the corner with her classmates, but not before she placed a chair against the door.
"I didn’t hear gunshots, but I didn’t know if anyone else had weapons," Sophie said. "I was kind of mad and frustrated — why would you want to scare kids?"
We are on a lock down and somebody knocked on our door. I am trying not to cry and holding friends hands. We knew what to do. We went into a corner.
While Sophie doesn't have a phone, she did have an Apple watch, and she was able to consistently update her mom — who bought her the watch for this very reason in the event something happened at school. Some parents went immediately to the school, waiting to pick up their children as soon as possible. Her dad, Rep. Jason Powell, D-Nashville, picked up her near lunchtime.
"I knew how scared she was," Heather said. "She was open about that she might get sick and not knowing what was going on outside the classroom. There were about 45 minutes or so we didn’t know what was going on. We didn’t know it was a false threat or hoax. We’ve talked about it a little bit. We talked about it after the Covenant shooting in the spring. There has been some level of training for my kids at school. She wasn’t sure if it was a drill or something real. It doesn’t matter if it was false or a hoax. Her feelings were real. The terror I felt as a parent was real."
I know you're scared. Try to keep breathing and you will be ok.
Heather said it's hard as a mom to send her child back into school, knowing there's no guarantee that something like this will never happen again. While huddled in the corner, Sophie heard police sirens and the propellers of a helicopter. She said she saw her teacher uneasy. However, those sights and sounds won't detract her from wanting to keep going to school, she said.
"At MLK — the doors are strong and the teachers are brave," Sophie said. "It doesn’t bother me to go back to school, but I want to know that my friends will be OK if we are going in between classes. I am not nervous to go back but I am nervous the other kids will get hurt like the Covenant school shooting."
Editor's note: The sentences in italics were exchanged texts between Sophie and Heather on Wednesday morning. They were shared with NewsChannel 5.
