Lockdown lifted in 3 Key Gates Charter School campuses in Homestead

Keys Gate Charter Schools’ three campuses in Homestead were put on lockdown by Homestead police on Thursday morning reports of a potential school threat.

The schools are located on East Palm Drive and Southeast 28th Avenue. 

Police put the schools on lockdown by “in an abundance of caution” while they investigated a tip about a possible school threat, said Colleen Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the school, told the Miami Herald.

“All students are safe and secure and there is no immediate danger,” Reynolds said in an email to the outlet. 

The school is operated by Charters School USA.

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Parents received an email from the school on Thursday morning saying that authorities were investigating a tip about a possible threat that was made to its grades 6-12 campus. 

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The Homestead Police Department “flooded” the school and were later joined by the Miami-Dade Police Department, according to a statement from the HPD. Police detectives began investigating the incident while other police officers swept the school in a room by room search for weapons. 

A few hours later the lockdown was lifted after an investigation revealed that a student had made a false threat.

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“That student has been taken into custody by Homestead Police Detectives and will be charged accordingly and faces administrative action by the school,” the police said in a statement to reporters. 

The student, aged 13, whose identity has not been released, will be charged accordingly and will also face administrative action by the school. 

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Corinne Baez, principal of the school reassured parents, saying, “our students are safe, they’re secure, they’re in their classrooms.” According to them, school authorities were going to classrooms one by one to ensure everyone was safe and that all the students were secured and that their safety was “very important to us.”