ECMC shooting put schools in lockdown

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - The impact of Wednesday's shooting at ECMC stretched well beyond the grounds of the hospital.

The shooting and subsequent search for a killer with a gun sent a scare into two nearby Buffalo schools and put them into emergency mode. School 84, which is right on ECMC's campus, and School 89, the Doctor Lydia T Wright School of Excellence, both went into lockdown.

The administrators' task was keeping kids calm while the search for a killer swirled around them and a sheriff's helicopter buzzed overhead.

A PA announcement stated, "Everyone is safe."

The uncertainty was too much for some parents who took matters into their own hands. Greg Williams accompanied his sister as she picked up his niece.

He said, "I mean there's airplanes and helicopters and stuff. We just wanted to get her out of here to make sure she's safe. It's around kids and all that."

Despite assurances from both school officials and Buffalo Schools' Central Office that everything was under control, Tracy Radford wanted to believe them but took her eighth grade daughter out of school, just to make sure she is safe.

"They don't know where this guy's at, and they are circling. I'm just not taking chances. I'm going to come get her and take her home," Radford said.

Even with a uniformed school resource officer from the Buffalo Police on patrol, Tammy Gaines instincts kicked in.

"He wasn't comfortable, so of course that didn't make me comfortable, so I had to be a mother," she said.

And Gaines took her son, Brandon, off to work with her.

A spokesperson told News 4 that school doors are locked during the day anyway, so they are hesitant to call the emergency procedure a "lockdown." Once the manhunt shifted away from the neighborhood, classes were dismissed as usual.