Children's tale of fictitious gun leads to frantic morning

Two schools spent Thursday morning in lockdown as a SWAT team descended on the city's Feltonville section in response to a fabricated story by four adolescent students who said they were victims of a gun incident, authorities said.

The children, ages 10 through 13, students at the Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences, falsely accused a woman of pointing a "long gun" at them as they were walking to school, according to police. Authorities took the report seriously, letting no one in or out of the middle school or Barton Elementary, a kindergarten-through-second grade school on the same campus.

The students were not named. Fernando Gallard, school district spokesman, said the district would investigate their actions.

"They could face disciplinary action for their behavior," he said.

Caught in the middle of the fictional tale was Patricia Claros, a mother of two who lives on the 4600 block of Ella Street near the middle school.

Police robot

The accusers reported the incident to the school. When police arrived about 9 a.m., the children pointed to Claros' house, saying a woman had peered out and pointed a long gun at them, police said.

Claros, a practicing Jehovah's Witness, was out preaching at the time, according to her pastor, Hector Delgado.

Police used a robot to determine no one was in the house and declared an all-clear just before noon. They later searched the house but left empty-handed. They recovered no firearms and made no arrests.

The school lockdown ended about noon. Police questioned Claros but didn't file any charges.

Claros' husband, Dennis, spoke to the media in Spanish at 3:30 p.m. and Delgado translated: "We are not angry at anything. The police have to do their job."

In a later news release, police said the homeowners "completely cooperated with authorities" and were cleared of any wrongdoing. The children "fabricated the story," police said.

As news spread, parents arrived at both schools to get their children early.

"I felt confused because I didn't know what happened," said Orquida Cesar, whose 11-year-old son is in the sixth grade at Feltonville.

'Nervous'

Mario Mercado picked up his sixth-grade daughter about 1:45. "It's kind of difficult," he said. "At least nothing happened."

His daughter said she was scared and started crying when the school went into lockdown. She said her mother saw the news on TV and was worried. That's when Mercado went to pick up his daughter.

"I was nervous because I didn't know what was happening," Cesar's son said. "I didn't know if it was Connecticut all over again," he said, referring to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre last year.

Cesar's son said students in his class watched cartoons during the lockdown.

Students at Feltonville said the school didn't tell them what had triggered the lockdown.

Contact Sulaiman Abdur- Rahman at sabdur- rahman@phillynews.com or follow on Twitter @sabdurr.

Inquirer staff writer Kristen Graham contributed to this article.