Canyon Crest Academy lockdown lifted

By City News ServiceApparent hoax shooting threats posted online prompted lockdowns today, Nov. 20, at two high schools a few miles apart in the Carmel Valley area, leaving nervous students cooped up in secured rooms while police searched the campuses.

The first scare took place at Torrey Pines High School. It began about 10:30 a.m. with a 911 call from a man who reported receiving a text message about the threat from his son, a student who’d heard about it from a classmate, according to San Diego police.

The menacing post on a social-networking site included a claim that a shooting would occur just before noon. Teachers kept students locked in their classrooms while officers went through the campus. By mid-afternoon, authorities were allowing students to leave the school grounds, SDPD spokesman Humberto Hernandez said.

The search of the Del Mar Heights Road school was wrapping up when, shortly before 3 p.m., a staffer at nearby Canyon Crest Academy made an emergency call to report that someone had posted a menacing website message about a shooting there as well. The threat included a claim that a shooter was ``on the way with three guns,’’ police said.

Administrators secured everyone inside rooms at the East Village Center Loop Road campus while police went over the grounds. Officers gave an all-clear about 3:45 p.m., according to Hernandez.

There were no arrests in either case by late afternoon, the spokesman said.