Student Experiences of Lockdown

Talk to four different students and you’ll get four different stories of what it felt like to be at Champaign Central High School on the 3rd of December, 2021.

Here are the facts that we know: the threat of a gun appeared (during one of the numerous fights that day) in Seely Hall after 5th hour on Friday, December 3rd. Students at the scene fled the building while 911 was called as a lockdown came into session. Two emails were sent from Unit 4 and Principal Williams as police officers checked the building. The lockdown was then lifted around 1:40 later that afternoon.

Yet this is simply the bird’s eye view, and it is important to hear of students’ personal experiences of the events that took place that day.

Abigail Davis

“Last Friday started off with a very usual amount of fights. I remember seeing blood on the floor on my way to PE, and everyone talking about it throughout the morning. So, when I was walking from lunch to 6th hour with my friend as we usually would, I wasn’t very surprised when another fight broke out right behind us. My friend and I continued to go to class as more people crowded around it. We were only a couple feet into the art/PE hallway when suddenly there was a huge change in mood. The giant crowd of people immediately turned around and bolted in our direction, screaming. We heard some teachers shout ‘get out of the building,’ so we ran, as far as we knew, for our lives. We also would’ve been trampled if we just stood there. We then made it outside and were out of breath and very unsure what had just happened.

Daniel Herzog

“It was pretty scary. I didn’t feel like there was any real real threat, especially since I was near the main area where the rampage happened. I heard a lot of people talking about someone saying they had a gun. I heard a lot of things that it was a joke… There were a lot of fights throughout the day, but it really started at the beginning of 6th hour, when PE is about to begin and suddenly a bunch of people started running away from Seely Hall, down the hall toward the newer portion of the building- towards the new gym. That’s when it really dawned on me that it could’ve been something serious… A few minutes later, Mr. Williams put an announcement on the intercom that we were on lockdown. So we stayed in the gym for a few minutes, and then they transferred us quickly to the locker rooms. We were in there for about 30-45 minutes. After a few more announcements on the intercom, we were taken off lockdown… Being in the locker room, I feel like I felt a little more safe. Some people weren’t really scared at all… I didn’t really see anyone extremely scared or feeling like they needed to hide. When they told us we could go back to our 7th hour, I felt like some people were too scared to do that and just walked out the door because we were pretty much allowed to go home for the rest of the day if we wanted to… I felt with how long the lockdown was, that if there was any threat, then it had since been eliminated… I did notice cops, and I noticed one with a very large gun… It did scare me a bit. I didn’t think the situation would’ve been that serious; it surprised me.”

(Anonymous)

“I got pepper sprayed because it was in the air: I inhaled it, and it got in my eyes, my lungs. And also, I was going to 6th period lunch and there was a bunch of yelling. Then someone screamed, “gun,” and that’s when everyone ran outside of the school, and I saw people being stepped on.”