The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley Law enforcement quickly responded to a reported incident at Third Ward Elementary School Tuesday afternoon, searching the building and outside perimeter. Police learned that the text message was sent by a juvenile.

ELKINS — A text message sent to Randolph County 911 led to Third Ward Elementary School being locked down Tuesday afternoon.

Randolph County Sheriff Rob Elbon said a text sent to the 911 center at approximately 3:17 p.m. Tuesday stated that there had been a shooting at the school.

“The text message that came into the Com Center said ‘come to Third Ward Elementary, there’s a school shooting,’ so we absolutely took the call very seriously,” Elbon told The Inter-Mountain Wednesday.

Elbon was the first law enforcement officer to arrive at the scene and said that some of the children at the school were boarding buses when he pulled in at the location.

“I arrived on-scene and entered the school as children were being brought outside to their buses as usual,” Elbon said in a press release. “I advised the school principal and other staff of the text message. School authorities immediately went into a code-red and secured all students in their respective classrooms and went in their lock down protocol.”

Elbon stated in the press release that he began searching the school room as other law enforcement units arrived and began a room-to-room search of the school and secured the outside perimeter.

“No shooter was located and all children and staff were safe,” Elbon said in the release. “School staff stated their normal end-of-day school dismissal procedures.”

Elbon said in the release that the phone number used to send the text message was “pinged,” and deputies went to the location where the phone was located on a nearby street.

“The number of the phone where the text originated from was confirmed and the phone was secured,” Elbon said in the release. “Deputies will continue this investigation and will submit a criminal investigation report to the prosecutor’s office and to juvenile court authorities for proper disposition.”

Elbon confirmed to The Inter-Mountain that the text message was sent from a juvenile.

“We had a debriefing this morning with the school staff and principal and went over everything,” Elbon said. “We are looking at ways to perfect our approach and how we deal with things like this.

“I thought the school staff at Third Ward did very well and they are well-trained. The staff there did everything just like they are supposed to do.”

The Elkins Police Department and West Virginia State Police also responded to the call and “were quickly on scene and promptly secured the facility for children and staff safety,” Elbon said.