NEW ROCHELLE, NY — The New Rochelle Police Department responded to a report of three intruders at New Rochelle High School. The incident occurred on Monday around lunchtime. The police were called at 12:45 p.m. Three high-school age youths from Port Chester were taken into custody by police. No arrests were made. Despite repeated assurances to parents regarding a tightening of school security measures, the three intruders managed to get deep inside the building and, once detected, no lockdown occurred.
“Three trespassers were found at the high school at House Two,” said New Rochelle Police Detective Captain Joseph Schaller.
UPDATE 1/17: Sources tell Talk of the Sound that Security Officer Paul Sarachelli detained the three intruders and contacted Security Director Bruce Daniele after the three intruders refused to leave the building. Sarachelli was instructed to contact Assistant Principal Joseph Starvaggi to get approval to call the New Rochelle police. There was a delay of approximately one hour before authorization was given to call the police.
The New Rochelle High School Draft/Proposed/Template/Safety Plan contains a section on what to do in such an event.
INTRUDER-DANGEROUS PERSON IN AREA—LOCKDOWN/LOCKOUT
An intruder or dangerous person has entered the building
- Call 911 immediately.
- Provide as much information as possible about the threat to law enforcement.
- Notify the Principal’s office.
- Issue a plain language Lockdown announcement over the PA system: “We are in a lockdown.”
- Teachers then follow lockdown procedures:
– Pull in any students from hallway, lock doors, turn lights off and move students to a section of the classroom out of line-of-sight of the window in the door.
– Leave window shades to the outside up
– Inform students of lockdown procedures including no use of cell phones or computers and remaining quiet.
– Take student attendance.
- Security staff needs to be positioned behind locked doors as well.
- Staff and students outside at the time of the lockdown must not return to the building, but should immediately proceed to the designated “safe area” away from the school building.
- Principal or designee notifies Superintendent’s Office.
- Building remains in lockdown until law enforcement and principal determine that it is safe to resume school activities.
- Police and school administrators will go to each classroom to issue the “all clear” signal room-by-room (not over the PA system).
- After the incident is resolved, the Building Safety Team will debrief and consult with the Superintendent’s Office to determine appropriate communication to staff, students, and parents.
- CIT will be convened and a faculty meeting will be held after the debriefing at the end of the school day, if possible.
- All media requests will be forwarded to the District Communications & Media Specialist.
Although police were called, no lockdown announcement was made and the school did not go on lockdown.
On January 3rd, a man wearing a Zorro mask entered Jefferson School during which the school failed to follow its INTRUDER-DANGEROUS PERSON security procedures. Rather than call 911 and go on lockdown, School Principal Kimmerly Nieves invited the intruder into her office, met with him and then allowed him to leave the building. Nieves later called School Security Director Bruce Daniele who in turn called New Rochelle police with a report of a “dangerous person” by which point the person was long gone. Police officers were deployed to search for the person. Police located the person, questioned him and released him.
Security guards are the problem
70 percent of them are idiots and unemployable. If the district were able to clean house and get rid of them, we would see major improvements. I would say, bruce daniele is doing a fabulous job as the director especially since new rochelle is such a large district. If it weren’t for him we’d have serious problems. Thanks for the article bob and showing us how great our leadership is!!
All parents of New Rochelle Students
All Parents of New Rochelle Student should call Bruce Daniele and see why this happened. I had a run in with a security guard at the high school at a sporting event and she treated me like a criminal and it was obvious that I was a parent. But I can not believe how nasty she was to me, but here we have strangers in the school and no one is questioning them. I know the students can’t go to school with out their IDs, where were these people’s IDs??
Did not happen
I was in the school this did not happen
school security
Sounds like a complete breakdown, from the security to the principal.
We pay millions for security in our schools.
would like an explaination. Please stay on this story!
Apparently the administration
Apparently the administration did budget cuts, so every door cannot be covered by a security guard, however the three young men of school age were found immediately and brought to the school administration who did what they had to do.
Shut the doors dumbells!
So a simple solution Two entrances, to the school two exits daily maybe three, enough guards for that!
Everything else closed except for emergency exit! with alarms that go off if opened.
I am not a trained security officer and can figure that out, loose the budjet cut argument sounds like the usuall excuses. Cant do the job get out of the way, and let someone else do it.
Enough with the excuses in New Rochelle!
That would be dangerous
I understand your point, but while that method is great in theory, in practice it would be disastrous. There are over 3300 students in New Rochelle High School, and forcing them to enter and leave through just two or three exits would definitely lead to somebody getting hurt. Not all the students at New Rochelle High School are nice and respectful, and at the end of the day everyone is tired and stressed out. There will be enormous lines of students rushing to leave the building, people WILL push those lines, and students WILL get hurt. There are just too many students and faculty members in the school to limit exits. What we need are GOOD security guards, not the ones we have now that don’t do their jobs unless an administrator walks by.
ho much money
Come on now. How much more moneydoes this school district want to rob from me. I was looking to refinace my mortgage and the loan person was shocked!!! By the cost of my school taxes. He has not seen anything like it for the size of my house. The loan officer was from out west.
We need more than just
We need more than just explanations..action. I had cause to visit the HS a few weeks ago. I entered, no security guard. Went about my visit with school administrators and mentioned that I entered the building completely unnoticed. Was told guard was taking care of a matter and was going back to the post. I finished up 45 minutes later and made my way to the exit which remained without a guard. For as many calls made to the school obviously they can’t get this resolved. It’s nice that we comment on this page but the noise has be to louder and more meaningful in the right forum and soon.
New rochelle sucks
The guard was at starbucks along with half the police force that sits there for the wi fi.
Yea we need more police commisoners, Wake up dumb New Rochellians.
my child saw something
My child said something was going on that day. And they said think bob is right on this
Don’t get the wrong idea.
Don’t get the wrong idea. Students can and do go to school without ID’s all the time. I myself rarely ever bring my ID. Our security guards just don’t care. I can walk into the lunch room at anytime using the ID of someone of a different race who is of the opposite sex and the security guards won’t notice. In this case a lockdown may not have been very effective because the people who broke in were high school students. NRHS is an enormous school. It’s impossible for one person (student or teacher) to know over 3000 students. If someone looks like a student, then we assume he or she is a student. Therefore in the case of a lockdown drill, those three intruders would have been mistaken for students of NRHS, and they would have most likely been pulled into a classroom by a teacher.