Georgia Teacher Arrested After Barricading Himself in Classroom, Firing Shot

DALTON, GA — The small town of Dalton, Georgia was thrown into turmoil when a deeply disturbed high school teacher barricaded himself into a classroom and fired a handgun, Fox News reports.

We aren’t talking about an incident on the level of the Parkland, Florida tragedy last week; the teacher closed himself in a room with no students inside, and the only injury sustained as a minor one sustained in the evacuation.

Still, the situation was extremely dangerous.

As Fox News reports:

The Dalton Police Department identifed the teacher as Jesse Randall Davidson, 53, a social studies teacher who also does play-by-play announcements during the school’s football games. He has been employed with the school since 2004.

Davidson was charged with aggravated assault, carrying a weapon on school grounds, terroristic threats, reckless conduct, possession of a gun during commission of a crime and disrupting public school, police said in a tweet.

The department earlier tweeted a person, believed to be a teacher, was barricaded inside a classroom. The person allegedly would not allow students into the room, police said.

Dalton High School was placed on lockdown and police confirmed no children were in any danger and there weren’t any students inside the classroom at the time of the incident, they said. The school and the area surrounding it were evacuated…Police did not say what type of firearm was used but confirmed it was a handgun. The gun has been recovered.

One student was injured after sustaining an ankle injury while running inside the school during the building evacuation, the Dalton Police Department tweeted. No faculty or staff were reported injured in the incident.

According to Fox News, the school’s principal, Steve Bartoo, noticed Davidson preventing students from entering the classroom in which he barricaded himself.

Bartoo reportedly attempted to enter the classroom twice to deescalate the situation, but was ordered to go away by the teacher and forced back.

The school’s resource officer was at a local middle school, but was called. Police officers arrived on-scene in minutes.

This story ended as well as it could reasonably have — and that’s a very soft statement.

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