Incident in Columbus prompts lockdown at middle, elementary schools

COLUMBUS, Wis. — Schools in Columbus were on administrative hold Wednesday morning as police investigated an incident, school district officials said.

Columbus superintendent Annette Deuman told News 3 the district received a call around 9:45 a.m. from law enforcement officials that there was an incident in the community and schools should be placed on lockdown.

Shortly after that, Deuman said the school was moved to an administrative hold, which means the school day continues as normal in the building, but students are not released into the community.

Columbus police said they were looking for a person who had made statements saying they were going to harm themselves with a weapon, so they instructed the middle and elementary schools to go into lockdown as a precautionary measure.

Deuman said law enforcement officials believed the threat had left the community, but they were holding students until they heard back from police.

In a news release at 2:30 p.m., police said the person officers were looking for was found and there was not an active threat to the community or the schools, police said.

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