Albany school officials detail Thursday lockdown

ALBANY, N.Y. (WRGB) - School officials in Albany are releasing more information involving a student who brought a BB gun into the high school on Thursday, causing the school to go into lockdown.

"It could've ended very differently," said school district spokesman Ron Lesko.

Lesko says officials are preaching a simple lesson to those inside the school.

"If it's not one of the doors our students and staff are supposed to come through, don't open it," Lesko said.

That's because the student who was taken into custody on Thursday for bringing the BB gun into the high school was able to avoid the school's main entrances that have metal detectors.

"A person opened the side door for the student to come in through," Lesko said.

He says it was clear on video cameras, which monitor the more than 100 doors into the school regularly.

"With so many external doors, it does present security challenges for us," Lesko said.

A challenge he says that's part of an overlying issue.

"What are some of the additional measures that maybe we need to put in place now to address that?” he listed as a question moving forward. “Are there alarms we need to put on the doors?"

"We have a great relationship with the school district,” Albany police spokesman Steve Smith said.

Albany police have a school resource officer in the high school at all times and a continued conversation with staff.

"To not just ensure the kids are safe in school, but to ensure they're safe outside of school, at school dismissal," Smith said.

Smith says dating back a year from now, there were 63 calls to the school - not all for violent incidents, like a fight in October, or a brawl one year ago in December. But they're ready to respond when necessary.

"Somebody observed this weapon yesterday and did the right thing," Smith said.

Lesko says it's a question officials must ask everyday - how to get better.

"No matter the security protocols that we have in place - it failed yesterday, and it didn't work right,” he said. “We have to look at that and we are looking at that and make sure that kind of thing doesn't happen again."

We did reach out to surrounding police departments in Troy and Schenectady for those numbers in responding to the local schools - but they did not get back to us with that information on Friday.