UPDATE: Lockdown Lifted at Cupertino Preschool

By Bay City News Service

UPDATE 3:45 P.M. The lockdown at Good Sam preschool was lifted and all but one child had been picked up, according to staff at the preschool. Police are still in the vicinity, but no longer searching the immediate area of the preschool.

UPDATE: 2:30 p.m. 

A preschool in Cupertino remains locked down this afternoon as authorities go door-to-door searching for a suspect, a school official said.

As of 2 p.m., about 60 children remained behind locked doors in their classrooms. The lockdown started at about 11:45 a.m., school assistant director Stacey O'Toole said.

The students were napping this afternoon after having lunch in class, O'Toole said.

"To them, it's like a rainy day," O'Toole said. "They don't know that it's a lockdown. It's like any other day to them."

Sheriff's deputies told school officials that a suspect remains at large in the neighborhood and that deputies are conducting a house-to-house search for the person, O'Toole said.

The staff does not yet know why the suspect is being sought, O'Toole said.
"We know there is a suspect at large, we know there are helicopters, but we are in the dark ourselves," O'Toole said.

Santa Clara County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza said the suspect is wanted for a crime that occurred in neighboring Sunnyvale, but he did not have additional details. 

Doors to all of the classes and other rooms in the small school have been locked, O'Toole said.

The father of one student arrived at the school to wait for his child, but parents are not permitted anywhere inside the school during the lockdown, O'Toole said.  

ORIGINAL STORY:

A Cupertino preschool is on lockdown this afternoon because of police activity nearby, a school official said.

Staff at the Good Samaritan Preschool at 19624 Homestead Road brought the children inside around 11:45 a.m. after authorities told them to place the school on lockdown because of a suspect on the loose in the area,
school assistant director Stacey O'Toole said.

She said the school has locked its front doors and classroom doors, turned off the lights and asked students to lie on the floor "to protect their precious lives.

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