Fort Myers High school on lockdown after intruder finds unlocked door

Fort Myers High School was locked down Thursday morning after evidence was left behind of an intruder getting inside the school from an unlocked door.

Fort Myers police said they have a picture of the man who broke into the school from a surveillance camera. The video shows the suspect getting into the school through an unlocked door. Parents who have children attending the school were unnerved after the news broke.

WINK News spoke with Armor Persons, the Lee County School Board chair, about what happened.

“They saw that a person had entered there, but they did not see when he left. And it was several hours later… took them a while to go through all the cameras to view it and make sure,” Persons said. “So, they did finally see where he left. I’m not sure how many hours it was, but it was a little bit of time.”

Stephen Brooks dropped his daughter off at Fort Myers High School at 7:05 a.m., like any other school day.

“She started text messaging and messaging us around 7:45 this morning, saying that they were on lockdown,” Brooks said.

The principal sent every parent an email 45 minutes later.

“It was just we were under lockdown. Everybody is safe. We are back, resuming normal operations did not really contain any specific details,” Brooks said.

Brooks told WINK News the principal told him the suspect was in the building for six hours by phone. Fort Myers police confirmed that length of time, and a district spokesman told WINK News that students were not at the school when the man was inside.

“That is absolutely terrifying. He could have been hiding in a closet with a gun, he could have planted some kind of a device he could have done any number of things,” Brooks said.

Other questions include why didn’t anyone know the door was left open, and why didn’t an alarm go off when he got inside.

The principal said nobody was in danger and explained the door the intruder opened had been tested and locked every time since the tests were conducted. The principal also said the miscommunication over not activating the alarm has been addressed.

“You learn from mistakes and, you know, I do not see this happening again,” Persons said. “I don’t know if it was a malfunction of technology or if it was a human error. You know, it’s something we will find out.”

WINK News tried getting answers from Lee County schools, school board members, the district’s director of safety, security, and emergency management, and the superintendent. All that only to be referred back to the principal’s email.