Two Arrested During Lockdown

A lockdown and drug search at Wills Point High School resulted in two arrests on Tuesday, according to principal Jim Lamb and resource officer Nicole Griffin.

"The police showed up with the drug-sniffing dog at about 11 a.m., and said they were conducting a search, so that’s what we did," Lamb said during an interview on Wednesday morning.

Wills Point police had received "good information" that a drug exchange was going to take place and arrived at the campus unannounced with the Canton Police Departments K9 unit.

"It probably seems dramatic to go through the lock down, but we wanted to ensure that no one was able to leave or get rid of drugs," Lamb said. "We felt that a lockdown was necessary to accomplish what we wanted to, and we were successful."

Classrooms were locked while the drug dog "ran" the lockers. In addition four or five classrooms were randomly chosen for the dog to check. Students were removed from those classrooms and advised to leave jackets bags and purses on their desks.

The search party then went to the parking lot, and the dog reacted to two vehicles. Those vehicles were then searched.

Roger Dane Reynolds, 17, was arrested for possession of marijuana under two ounces, and Jesse Rodden, also 17 was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia and minor in possession of tobacco on school grounds.

"I don’t believe that we have a drug problem in our school, but we also know that there are drugs in Wills Point and we have students that will use them," Lamb said. "This was a little dramatic, but I would do it every day if it would keep drugs out of the school. The message to students is don’t bring drugs to this campus.

The operation was planned and executed by Wills Point police, and resource officer Nicole Griffin said that the search went very smoothly.

"All of the students and teachers reacted exactly as they should have, and it went very quickly," Griffin said. "We found what we were after."

Lamb said that the lockdown lasted approximately 30 minutes.

The junior high school also went into lock down for precautionary reasons.

We heard reports that the high school was locked down and we did the same as a precaution until we could find out what was going on," said junior high principal Tom Harp. "It only lasted about 10 minutes for us."