Seymour Police find fake gun in school, two teenagers arrested

SEYMOUR, Wis. (WFRV) -- Seymour Police have arrested two white male teenagers at Seymour High School after find a fake gun hidden within the building.

Seymour Middle and High Schools had to go into lockdown for about three hours starting around noon after a student tipped off police that there may be a weapon in the high school.

It was an "educational lockdown," meaning students were able to continue classes while police swept the building for potential weapons.

Family members of students were on edge outside of the middle and high school buildings.

"I'm nervous about it...just dropped everything at work to get down here," Isabel Parker, a grandmother of a Seymour student, said.

Students were dismissed class-by-class and their bags were searched by teachers before they could leave the building.

Students could also not retrieve their bags if they were left in lockers.

"I hope everybody's safe, I don't know what's going on right now.," Randy Young, a father of two Seymour students, said during the lockdown. "I really don't. I don't know what the deal is. It's scary, I'm petrified right now."

The Seymour police chief said in what could have been hours of fear, were actually hours of calm because of the way students handled themselves.

"It went very professionally, I think it was very systematically, and it was very calm, handled very calmly," Seymour Police Chief Richard Buntrock said. "There was no heightened alertness with any of the students, everything was done very well."

While students were dismissed at 3 p.m., officers were still searching for a reported weapon.

One mom waiting in her car for her daughter said that she's comforted by the security the school already had in place.

"With the liaison officers in the school...and they put more cameras up, they watch over the students more, they check lockers more," Brenda Salaj, mother of a Seymour student, said. "It's a lot more than what they did back in the days when I was in school."

The Seymour Police Department also received praise on its Facebook page for the way everyone handled the situation.

Police ar still looking into what motivated two students to hide a fake gun in the school.

"I always go through my kids backpacks when they get home, I talk to them about their day, even at night before bedtime we talk about their problems or how we can solve it, you know stuff like that," Salaj said. "It's just that these people have to communicate with their kids more often, because that's the problem. A lot of this stuff starts at home."

The schools will have additional officers and guidance counselors on campus Thursday, and classes will resume with a normal schedule.

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