Leaders provide update on incident at Gwinnett HS football game, threats made towards school

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News has learned that more police officers will be at Discovery High School in Lawrenceville on Monday.

This is because chaos broke out at a Friday night football game in Gwinnett County.

Officials with Discovery High School said they are seeing threats on social media.

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Sunday night, school and district leaders are investigating what happened Friday night at Discovery High School during halftime of the football game.

Kaleb Ford recorded the cell phone video of the chaos.

“I was in the stands and then both stadiums just started running down both sides. I said I should probably get out of the stands and go on the field, so I won’t get trampled. A lot of people got trampled,” Ford said.

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Rumors quickly spread throughout the campus, that there were gunshots. Sunday night, Discovery High Principal Marci Sledge addressed those claims in a statement.

The statement reads:

Dear Discovery High School Parents and Guardians,

We all share the safety of students and staff as a top priority. With that in mind, I wanted to let you know that we are aware of chatter and video circulating on social media regarding threats to our school.

I want to reassure you that we are taking this situation seriously. Our School Resource Officers (SRO), in conjunction with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, are actively investigating the source of the threats and who is responsible. At this point, authorities have found no evidence that the threats are credible. To be clear, police say your student is safe and not in any danger.

I also want to address a video from Friday night during which a popping sound can be heard. Despite talk that the sound came from gunshots, police say it was fireworks. To be clear, investigators say no gunshots were fired Friday night, the sound in the video came from fireworks.

I know that these types of posts can be very disruptive and concerning. In an abundance of caution, we will have additional SROs on campus Monday, and our administrative team will monitor the campus and engage with students to help them feel safe. With that said, we can’t do this alone. We need your help.

Please talk to your student about the dangers and potentially life-altering consequences of making threats against our school community and spreading false rumors. Making threats against individuals and/or our school is not only a violation of our student disciplinary code, it is also against the law. Violators will face appropriate school disciplinary consequences and criminal charges.

Although this situation is still under investigation, I felt it important to share this information with you in case you or your child should hear the rumors or chatter on social media about it. Again, I want to reassure you that we are actively dealing with this situation.

Should there be any new information related to the investigation, we will communicate it to you.

As a reminder, please let us know if you or your student sees or hears about something troubling and/or threatening to our school community. You can report your concerns anonymously through “GCPS Tips,” our mobile app, or through a desktop or laptop web browser at P3Campus.com/5105. Any information or tips you can share can help out investigation. Apple users can download GCPS Tips via the “App Store.” Android users can find it in “Google Play.” You can also share anonymous concerns by texting 738477

I want to take this opportunity to thank the students and parents who reported their concerns to school administrators. We all have a role to play when it comes to keeping schools safe and those that came forward did the right thing.

As always, I thank you for your continued support of our school and students!

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