Craig Warga / NY Daily News
Police patrol the grounds at Elmont Memorial High School Tuesday, January 15, 2013. An early morning 911 call about a suspicious person prompted school officials to put the campus on lockdown.
A Long Island high school remains on lockdown Tuesday as police sweep the campus following reports that someone was seen with what looked like a gun in a backpack.
Nassau County police swarmed Elmont Memorial High School in Elmont, N.Y. around 7:40 a.m. after a 911 call reporting a suspicious person with a green-colored gun on school grounds.
"It appeared to be a lime green toy gun," parent Byron Blair, 41, told the Daily News. Blair’s son Christian, a freshman, was still inside the building.
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Blair said school officials assured parents all the students are safe.
"From what I hear, they put them (the students) in the cafeteria and they are watching movies," Blair said.
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Shortly after the 911 call, SWAT teams, bomb squads and canine units fanned out around the building.
Sophomore Jonothon Davis said he ran outside when he heard the commotion.
"There was like a lot of screaming. The teachers said be quiet," Davis said. "Once I saw people running and screaming I knew I had to get out of there."
Worried parents that flocked to the school were taken aback by the police presence.
"It looked like something out of a movie. They had a guy dressed in a bomb suit like the Hurt Locker," Blair said.
Nassau officials said police were still searching the grounds more than three hours after the lockdown was called trying to locate the suspicious item.
“The fact that they have so many units means they're probably trying to recover it," said Nassau County legislator Carrie Solages, was was outside the school.
"We have no idea who this person is," she added.
Davis said his friends inside the school have informed him that they are being fed and police are searching lockers for weapons.
The gun scare in Elmont comes as New York state legislators prepare to pass some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. Albany took up the legislative package, which expands the state’s existing ban on assault weapons and makes it illegal for a mentally ill person to own a firearm, following the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
vcavaliere@nydailynews.com
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