Rose Garden Resident

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Police lock down 4 area schools following nearby armed robbery

By Mary Gottschalk

Students at four Rose Garden-area schools were locked down for two hours Feb. 5 as San Jose police responded to an armed robbery.

The call for a Code Blue, as a lockdown is called, came to principals at Lincoln High School, Hoover Middle School, Trace Elementary School and Luther Burbank School around 8:35 a.m.

The cause was an armed robbery in the vicinity of Park and Hester avenues.

Karen Fuque, spokeswoman for San Jose Unified School District, said police called the schools directly and also notified the district. Police told school officials an armed suspect was in the area around the schools, which are clustered along Dana Avenue.

Fuqua says such lock downs are rare, happening only once or twice a year across the district.

In Code Blue, Fuqua said, "There is a heightened level of concern and students are contained in the classrooms, but at times they can go from class to class depending on severity. Instruction continues on as usual, but the kids are kept in the classroom."

The higher Code Red is reserved for when there is an intruder on campus, Fuqua said.

Details for the armed robbery are sketchy.

An employee of the Park & Hester Market said he understood a man was robbed on the street, and the male suspect then ran down Hester toward Lincoln.

A suspect was apprehended and arrested by police at around 10:30 a.m. and booked into jail.

In an email to the Lincoln community, principal Chris Funk wrote, "I want to congratulate and thank the entire staff and students for their immediate reaction to the Code Blue announcement. Everyone cleared the quad and all of the hallways immediately and stayed calm for the two hours. It was a challenging situation that everyone handled with professionalism."