HOT SPRINGS, Ark. (KTHV) – A recent job has likely left a few pest-control workers red faced as their removal attempts resulted in a school lockdown.
According to Corporal Kirk Zaner, police received a call from an employee at Gardner Primary School around 8 a.m., saying that three men with rifles were walking near the front of a school. The teacher reportedly activated the school’s intruder alarm and notified administrators of the situation; the school immediately went into lockdown.
Zaner said when police responded with several departments and a SWAT team, a search for the armed men began.
Investigators said they soon learned that three men from a local pest control company were trying to eradicate squirrels from a nearby apartment complex.
The men told police that one of them had fired a pellet rifle at a squirrel found at the apartments but missed. The squirrel apparently ran toward the school, and the men – all armed with the same type of weapon – chased after it.
As police were responding, continued Zaner, the men saw police, thought a dangerous situation was occurring at the school, and left the area. None of them knew that they were the ones who trigged the police response.
Zaner emphasized that the men were never actually on school grounds.
