|
Students kept in schools during search for suspects, squad car stolen Staff and wire reports - 10/7/04GLENVIL -- Students at several schools were ordered to stay inside Wednesday and their parents were asked to picked them up as police searched for two people suspected of shooting at a State Patrol car. All evening activities, including football, volleyball and cross-country practices, were canceled at Sandy Creek school near Fairfield and in public schools in the towns of Superior, Lawrence and Nelson, said Kent Miller, superintendent of the South Central Unified School District, which includes 1,050 students in those schools. Some parents would have to drive 25 miles or more to pick up their children, Miller said. Angie Kathman, secretary at Lawrence-Nelson Elementary School, said other towns with schools in lockdown included Red Cloud and Blue Hill. Kathman said Lawrence-Nelson students and Sacred Heart Elementary students were participating in fire prevention activities outside the school before the lockdown was ordered at about 8:30 a.m. Soon, the town was filled with police cars, she said, and students were ushered inside. Kathman said she saw airplanes flying east of town. The State Patrol's air wing unit, canine unit and Troop C's SWAT team, which is based in Grand Island, had joined the Nuckolls County Sheriff's Department in searching for the suspects, according to a press release from the patrol. The chase began shortly before 8 a.m. when a trooper tried to stop a car south of Glenvil, in Clay County, according to the patrol press release. People in the vehicle sped away and about 20 miles to the south they ditched the car near Lawrence, in Nuckolls County. There, shots were fired at the patrol car, hitting the windshield near the rearview mirror, but the officer was not injured, police said. The car driven by the suspects was reported stolen out of Cozad. The State Patrol said one of two people involved in the chase may be Wendy Valencia, a 15-year-old Elm Creek girl who had run away from her home and was believed to have stolen a squad car Tuesday as police arranged for her transfer to the Buffalo County Sheriff's Department. Valencia is described as Hispanic, 5-foot-3 and 120 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone who has contact with her is asked to call Troop C headquarters at 385-6000. The other person in the chase was believed to be a male of unknown age, the patrol said. |