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Teacher keeps kids calm during lockdown of Albuquerque schools

By Susie Gran
Saturday, January 26, 2008

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Locked down with 15 kindergartners was not teacher Therese Garcia's idea of a pleasant Friday afternoon.

Every time one of her little ones got near a window or the door, she backed them off with a stern voice.

"It was kind of nerve-racking," she said. "I'd order them to get back over here."

Garcia didn't get to leave Hodgin Elementary School until about 6 p.m. Friday because of the lockdown that began at 2:20 p.m., a minute before students are normally released for the day.

A couple of blocks away from the school, Albuquerque police arrested a gunman they'd been chasing for several hours. Garcia's students saw a policeman and a helicopter when they left school with their parents and that's when they began asking questions.

Three other schools in the Northeast Heights area also were locked down during the police chase, but Hodgin was the last school allowed to release its students. In all, more than 2,200 children were involved in the lockdown, said Rigo Chavez, spokesman for Albuquerque Public Schools.

The chase started on I-25 when a man in a red Thunderbird pointed a gun at an unmarked police car, said John Walsh, Albuquerque police spokesman.

The man was chased off I-25 at Montgomery Boulevard Northeast, where his car struck a police cruiser that tried to stop him, Walsh said. The man then drove on until his car quit near Montgomery and Washington Street Northeast. Then he got out and ran, Walsh said. That's when police locked down the area, Walsh said.

Several dozen officers conducted a yard-to-yard search for the man. A K-9 unit found him hiding beneath a tarp, Walsh said.

The suspect, 17-year-old Jude Schulte, was arrested and charged with several counts of assault and evading arrest, then booked into the Juvenile Justice Center, Walsh said.

The 545 students at Hodgin Elementary were the first to be locked down. Also closed were McKinley Middle School, Bel-Air and Gov. Bent Elementary Schools. Bel-Air and McKinley students were released at 4:05 p.m., Chavez said.

At Hodgin, Garcia said she and the other teachers kept their cool to minimize worries among the students. The kindergarten students seemed oblivious, but they were starting to get tired, she said.

"They were preoccupied and didn't ask very many questions. When they did want to go home, I told them we had to wait until the principal told us we could," she said. "It was easy for me to distract the kindergartners but I imagine the older students would be more freaked out."

Garcia said she called all the parents to let them know their children were safe in their classroom. Many of the parents were on the Hodgin campus waiting in the library or cafeteria for the lockdown to end.

During the lockdown, Garcia's students kept busy eating popcorn, dancing and drawing pictures. Of course, they needed to use the bathroom but couldn't leave the classroom. Garcia said a small trash can in the storage closet had to do.

"I probably should have been more worried," she said, "but after a while I decided to get stuff ready for next week. It could have been a lot worse.

"But it was a Friday and it was the last place I wanted to be, locked down in my classroom. I wanted to go home to my family, and I'm sure the children and their parents felt the same."

Garcia is the mother of 13-month-old twins. She has taught at Hodgin for three years. Friday was her first lockdown.