Lockdown Lifted for Ontario High School After Reports of Suspect With Knife

Police tape is shown in a file photo. Graeme Roy/The Canadian Press

A lockdown at an Etobicoke high school has been lifted after less than one hour, following reports that an individual was inside the school with a knife.

According to Toronto Police Service (TPS), Kipling Collegiate Institute, located near Martin Grove Road and The Westway, went into lockdown at approximately 2:42 p.m. local time. Police said in a post on Twitter that officers were en route to the school, which had gone into lockdown.

Shortly afterward, TPS said the lockdown had been lifted, with no suspect located, and there were no reported victims in the last update from police.

Ontario has seen a number of school lockdowns in recent months.

Last week, on June 6, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) said that a high school in Midland was under lockdown after reports of a student with a weapon.

Georgian Bay District Secondary School was placed in lockdown after a student was seen on security cameras walking into the school with a pistol-shaped item that looked like a firearm, according to CTV News. It later turned out to be a water gun, which resembled a Sig Sauer handgun, according to police.

On May 15, two schools in Fenelon Falls—Fenelon Falls Secondary School, and Langton Public School, both located 25 kilometres north of Lindsay, Ont.—were placed under lockdown for public safety, as police investigated reports of a suspicious individual in the area.

The OPP said at the time that they were investigating and asked the public to avoid the area. Later that day police announced they had made an arrest.

The Toronto District School Board says on its website that schools are sometimes put into a “lockdown” or a “hold and secure” as a result of police activity or incidents around the school. In a hold and secure, which is in response to a threat or incident in the general vicinity that does not involve the school, outer doors are locked and there is no entry or exit to the school.

A lockdown is in response to a threat or emergency situation in the school or very close to it and requires all students to be in their classrooms, with all interior doors locked. Lights are turned off and blinds are closed in classrooms where possible and the students are told to be quiet and not use their cellphones.

In an incident on May 26, eight area schools in Brampton, Ont., were placed on a hold and secure, with one school placed into lockdown according to CityNews, after a 17-year-old female sustained multiple gun wounds to her leg. At the time, Peel Regional Police were searching for a male suspect and said the victim was shot with a replica firearm in an area near Williams Parkway and Bramalea Road.