Kids walking to Turman Elementary on Friday morning ran into masked men with guns who claimed to be immigration officials, according to Harrison School District 2, which says the school locked down for less than 20 minutes while staff scrambled to get every student inside safely.
The district told KRDO that men identifying themselves as immigration officials were parked in unmarked vehicles near the school during morning drop-off and approached students on their walk in, claiming they were looking for someone in the neighborhood. According to KRDO, students reported that masked men with weapons aggressively approached them, leaving many feeling uncomfortable and unsafe. Superintendent Dr. Wendy Birhanzel said the men were posturing across the street with guns, standing on trucks and talking about ICE.
Kids With No Bus Caught in the Middle
The timing made the encounter especially fraught. Turman Elementary has no general-education bus transportation, meaning most students either walk to school or are dropped off by parents, per the district's own account. That leaves families with few alternatives when something disrupts the morning walk, and it is part of why the district moved quickly to bring every student inside as a precaution once staff learned what was happening.
District security arrived to make sure everyone was safe, and the school remained on secure status for less than 20 minutes before returning to normal. Turman sent an email to parents and staff reassuring them the school was safe and operating normally, adding that immigration officials did not approach the school itself or attempt to enter the building. Students continued learning as usual once the secure status lifted, but the district reported low attendance in the aftermath.
No Agency Claims Involvement
KRDO reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ask whether the agency was involved, and a spokesperson said ICE was still working on a statement. Meanwhile, several local and federal agencies have already ruled themselves out. The Colorado Springs Police Department, El Paso County Sheriff's Office, Colorado Bureau of Investigation and United States Marshals Service each confirmed to the outlet that they were not involved in the incident.
That denial matters to the district because of how these operations are normally supposed to work. The Colorado Springs Police Department and El Paso County Sheriff's Office typically inform Harrison School District 2 before active operations take place in area neighborhoods, according to the district. No such notice came this time, which Birhanzel said made the incident all the more alarming and disheartening.
A Superintendent's Frustration
Birhanzel said the encounter left families feeling that the school was not a safe place, a sentiment the district has voiced along with broader frustration and concern about how the situation was handled overall. Families and staff at Turman found themselves reacting to armed strangers near their kids without advance notice.
Colorado Springs is not the only place navigating this kind of disruption. In Chicago, some schools in predominantly Latino neighborhoods reported attendance declines of as much as 7% during the first month of this school year, even as the city's average attendance held around 92%, roughly on par with a year earlier, according to Block Club Chicago. That city has responded with volunteer-led “walking school buses” so families worried about encounters with immigration agents can get to school together, and some school board members and a Chicago Teachers Union leader have pushed for virtual learning options for immigrant students.
The 74 reports that the aftermath of a 2008 immigration raid at a Postville, Iowa, meatpacking plant, where agents arrested 389 workers, included increased absenteeism and mental health problems. The outlet reports that school officials from New York to New Mexico are bracing for similar anxiety and absenteeism, citing an estimated 1 million undocumented children nationwide and roughly 4.5 million more U.S.-born young people who have at least one undocumented parent. Districts including Miami, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York City, Des Moines and Portland, Oregon have responded by declaring their schools sanctuaries from federal immigration enforcement, per the same report.
For now, what happened outside Turman Elementary remains unresolved. No agency has claimed responsibility for the men students say confronted them, and ICE was still working on a statement.
