[November 15, 2011] ECISD: No weapon found at Permian after tip Tweet Nov 15, 2011 (Odessa American - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- ODESSA, Texas -- Ector County Independent School District police officers responded to Permian High School Tuesday morning after a student reported seeing another student with a gun, but police found no weapon or student matching the description. Working with Permian school personnel, ECISD police went from room to room looking for a male student matching the description given to them by a female student earlier in the day, but no one matching the description was found, Communications ECISD Director Mike Adkins said. Police also checked the Advanced Technological Center and found no students matching the description. No weapon was found on campus either and the campus was given an all clear around 1:30 p.m. Reports of the school going into a lock down or shoots fired on campus were debunked by Adkins. Calling them "rumors," he said they gained momentum through the use of social media sites. "Any reports of shots fired were completely wrong," Adkins said. H. Taylor Buckner, a retired associate professor of Sociology at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, said social media sites have given new depths to rumors and how quickly they spread and how large they can get. Buckner said websites such as Twitter and Facebook can spread the word about news, correctly or not, to many people in a matter of seconds. "(Rumors) get super-charged, but corrections come just as quickly," Buckner said. Adkins said ECISD does not have an official Twitter or Facebook page yet to help combat rumors started on the sites, but said officials with the school district have been looking into starting one up for almost a year. "The short answer is: yes, we're thinking about it," Adkins said. Lt. Mark Rowden with the ECISD police department said they decided not to issue a shelter in place or lockdown of the school do to several factors, including the timeliness of the report, the details of the report and from the experience and training the officers had. After looking at all the factors, Rowden said the situation did not call for a lockdown. "A lockdown is a tool ... we're not going to use every time," Rowden said. "It's situational." Rowden said the safety of students is always a factor before taking any action in any type of situation. "Safety of students is our priority," Rowden said. The incident started around 10 a.m. after a female student told an assistant principal she saw a male student on campus with a gun around 9 a.m., Adkins said. Police responded to the campus and went room to room with school officials searching for a suspect that matched the girl's description, but no such student was found, Adkins said. As of Tuesday afternoon, no new evidence was found and Adkins said police were still investigating. "It's too serious not to (investigate)" Adkins said. @OAgovernment ___ (c)2011 the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas) Visit the Odessa American (Odessa, Texas) at www.oaoa.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]