A “Fresh Prince” lockdown has the public talking this week, as the Huffington Post reported this Friday, March 1, that some schools in Penn. went under a lockdown after a high school student used a voicemail message of the theme song from the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” show that was taken the entirely wrong way. The greeting was perceived as a shooting threat, causing the “Fresh Prince” lockdown to take place in Beaver County schools.
The upset began this Thursday when a receptionist at a doctor’s office received a call from Travis Clawson, a high school student. The call went to voicemail — Clawson singing Will Smith’s theme “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” song. She mistook the lyric “Shooting some b-ball outside the school” for “Shooting people outside the school.”
The reported threat was reported to the police, and schools throughout the area were quickly forced into a school lockdown for a half hour as officials began looking for Travis Clawson. He was detained for several hours until the misunderstanding on the dubbed Will Smith “Fresh Prince” lockdown was made clear.
"He was afraid and embarrassed," Ambridge police officer Mike Natale revealed in the news report. "Obviously staff at the doctor's office was embarrassed about the whole thing too."
Ambridge Area School District Superintendent Erv Weischedel still sent a mass letter home to all parents adding that the "false alarm" could actually be seen as a positive.
"As always, the safety of our students and staff are at the forefront of our concern," he wrote. "While this situation can be considered to be a false alarm, it was an excellent opportunity to test our emergency procedures. The procedures in place were efficient and quickly implemented and proved to be successful."
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