The doors to the Garden City high school were locked shut for more than 90 minutes Monday as police searched the area for a suspect wanted in a Freeport assault case. A massive police manhunt triggered a complete lockout of all buildings in the Garden City School District Monday as helicopters buzzed the area searching for a suspect wanted in connection with an assault case. Earlier that morning, officers from Nassau County’s First Precinct entered the area searching for a man wanted for an assault in Freeport. The officers had obtained information that the suspect was working at a residence on Hampton Rd. along with a handful of other laborers. Upon arriving at the residence, the suspect immediately fled the scene and headed North toward the Garden City high school. Described as a day-worker, the suspect is a Hispanic male and was last seen wearing a tan sweatshirt and a baseball cap.

At about 10:19 A.M., Nassau Police requested assistance from the Garden City Police Dept. in locating the suspect. It was at this time that K9, helicopter and other County units were called to the area to aide in the search. At 10:52 A.M., a call was placed from the Garden City Police Dept. to the School District informing them of the situation. “We asked the high school for a limited lock down, to not let anybody in or anybody out,” said Garden City Police Lt. Vincent Thorn. “We didn’t want the guy they were looking for to run into the high school and we didn’t want kids en masse coming out of the high school while we’re running around looking for this guy.”

Due to the proximity of the high school being about two blocks away from where the suspect fled County police, Garden City Police only advised that the high school enter a lockout mode, but administrators opted to shut the doors at all schools and buildings in the District. “There was no need to involve any other school,” said Lt. Thorn, recalling that “certain people called (the Police Dept.), I believe if my recollection serves me correctly, from certain schools and we said that there’s no reason for you to lockdown.” When questioned as to why all seven schools in the District - the high school, middle school, the two elementary buildings and three primary schools - were under lock-and-key, School Supt. Robert Feirsen said the move was made “just to be cautious.” Feirsen stressed that “although we have great confidence in the police department, one never knows how that’s going to evolve so rather than react after the fact we took the extra precaution of locking out all the schools.”

Over on Seventh St., one mother said she had received text messages on her cell phone from her children inside the schools advising her of the lockouts, and rumors that the suspect was an escaped criminal began to spread in the same manner. Other reports quickly circulated around the Village that the individual in question had assaulted and allegedly killed another worker at the residence using a baseball bat. “All that is just misinformation and rumor that’s going around,” said Thorn. “The story got a lot larger than it needed to get. This... had nothing directly to do with Garden City other than this guy happened to go there to work.” Police failed to locate the suspect who is still at large.

While the phrases “lock-out” and “lock-down” can and are often used interchangeably, there is a difference when referring to a school district. Supt. Feirsen explained that whereas a lockdown prevents students, faculty, etc. from moving from room to room and forbids traffic in the hallways, a lockout simply closes and locks the exterior doors, preventing anyone from either exiting or entering a building. “Business went on as usual in the schools,” Feirsen pointed out, “it wasn’t a case where we had kids sitting in one spot- life went on.” The lockout ended between 12:30 - 12:40 P.M., lasting a little more than 90 minutes.

The school does conduct lockout drills every year, but it is the first time in recent memory that the measure has been carried out. “I can’t even remember when we had to do it because it was an actual sense of emergency,” said Feirsen. As for those members of the faculty and staff whom were caught outside the buildings before the lockout and who could not return for classes, the Supt. explained that the District “would cover the class, we’d make some provisions for that and they would just really have to wait. Again, these things don’t happen too often.”