Hill Gustat Locked Down For Drug Search

SEBRING - Three law enforcement agencies teamed up to lockdown Hill Gustat Middle School in a routine sweep Friday morning to search for drugs and weapons.

The Highlands County Sheriff's Office used its three patrol dogs, along with Sebring police's drug dog and Avon Park police's two patrol dogs.

The sweep began between 8 and 8:30 a.m. Friday and lasted about an hour, said Sheriff's Capt. Paul Blackman.

"No narcotics were detected and no weapons were found," Blackman said. "Which is a good thing.
"Now that we have the three patrol dogs that are trained to find narcotics the sheriff's office plans on using them for school searches on a regular basis."

Before the sheriff's office had to coordinate with law enforcement agencies from outside of the county to properly perform the searches, he added.

"It won't be scheduled," he said. "They can plan on seeing us in there during the school year."
Which school and when is anybody's guess.

"We want to keep the students guessing," Blackman said.

The students are initially barred from leaving the classroom during the search. They are asked to empty their pockets and shake out their shoes into a trash can.

Then they are removed from the classroom leaving behind the personal items and are led outside. Then the dogs are brought into the classroom.

"We take the students out of harms way," Blackman said, agreeing the dogs, while they are trained, they are animals and can be unpredictable.

There were a few instances where the dogs did alert, but nothing was found, Blackman was told.