COLUMBIA, S.C. — Samantha Threats, a freshman at Blythewood High School, and her sister Shataria were having what they called a normal Wednesday morning getting to school and going to their first period class. But that was soon interrupted by an announcement saying the school was on lockdown.
“I thought it was a drill at first, but it wouldn’t be going down like this. I was like ‘Why are the police coming?’ It was like one, two, three, and it just kept going and going."
Shataria, a senior, says once her class heard people were being evacuated by police, she and her classmates crawled out of a window to get to the stadium, the meeting point for the school.
“We had to go out the window and then run to the stadium...I was calling my mom and texting my mom and trying to keep in contact with her.”
Champ Hariss was also at Blythewood on Wednesday and says once he heard the report of a shooting at the school, he feared the worst.
“We started moving stuff up against the door. We seen cops with guns out ... it was a scary realization that there could've been somebody in the building with a gun."
Romario Lopez was in the school trying to get updates on the situation from those on the outside and trying to connect with his family still in the building. He said amidst the commotion, it was hard to know what was really happening.
"They said they couldn't find the shooter, so nobody really knew if there was one or not. There were no quote unquote reports of a shooter so nobody really knew what was going on."
According to the Richland County Sheriff, this was all part of an elaborate internet challenge that saw other schools in South Carolina get hit with similar threats. For Lopez, some fun online is not worth the scaring experience and classmates went through.