SWAT Team Raids School Only to Find Gunman Is a Hoax

A man with a two-way radio held sheriff’s deputies at bay for more than 13 hours by saying he was barricaded in a high school science laboratory with a rifle and explosives, but when officers moved in Thursday afternoon they found no trace of him.

During radio conversations with deputies that lasted into the early morning, a man identifying himself as Jerry said he was in the school and had nothing to live for because he has AIDS.

The tense standoff ended just after 1 p.m., when a SWAT team and bomb squad found neither the man nor explosives in the vast Franklin High School complex.

Someone had been at the school late Wednesday night because a window was broken, a burglar alarm had sounded and there appeared to be damage from gunshots, investigators said.

“It’s a hoax in the sense he evidently was not on the campus,” said Mike Esau, a San Joaquin County sheriff’s sergeant. “It’s not a hoax in the sense someone tripped that alarm (and) broke the window, and in the sense we talked with someone for several hours.”

Esau said the man was apparently in the area between 2 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. because he discussed police movements over the radio.

Deputies quoted him as saying: “I’ve got AIDS, I got it from a hooker, I’m in the science lab, I don’t have anything to live for” and threatening to blow up the building.