Lockdown Follows Phony School Threat

Three Albuquerque schools were locked down and SWAT teams searched the area around a middle school before an eighth-grader admitted she lied about seeing a man with a knife on campus, police said.

The schools were reopened after authorities determined 13-year-old Julie McEwen’s story was phony and there was no threat.

The girl, whose family recently had moved from California, said she made up the story because she didn’t like her new school, police spokesman Trish Hoffman said. She will face a misdemeanor charge in juvenile court of filing a false police report, Hoffman said.