Lockdown at NH schools ends after man surrenders

Keene Superintendent William Gurney said the schools were on lockdown about four hours, beginning after 6 a.m., as police searched for "someone with a shotgun who was distraught" following a domestic dispute. The lockdown was lifted after the man surrendered to police at the station.

Police said no one was injured.

Keene Police Chief Kenneth Meola said Adam Martz, 21, of Keene was charged with simple assault and resisting arrest. He was being held on $10,000 bond. He had not been assigned a lawyer by Tuesday afternoon, the Keene public defender's office said.

The chief said the search for Martz began shortly after 4 a.m. when police were called to the building where he lives with his girlfriend to investigate a domestic disturbance. While en route, police received a call saying the girlfriend had fled to another apartment in the building.

Meola said police arrived to find Martz standing on a balcony with a long gun in his hand, telling police to shoot him. He went inside and then ran from the building and into swampy woods behind Keene Middle School and the district's administrative offices.

Gurney said police called and asked if he could delay opening the schools, but Gurney told them the school buses were already rolling. The middle school, Keene High School, and Jonathan Daniels and Symonds elementary schools were placed on lockdown as a precautionary measure. Gurney said staff members were posted at every door to greet students and hustle them inside. Police officers were sent to all four schools.

"If he needed to find a police officer to turn himself in, there were plenty," Gurney said.

State police -- using dogs and a helicopter equipped with infrared detectors -- joined the search. Officers from nearby communities and the county sheriff's office also combed the area in search of Martz.

Gurney said the lockdown was both nerve-racking and a good drill for the schools.

"This for us pointed out some things we need to work on," he said.

The system has practiced "reverse evacuation" -- herding students from recess yards and playing fields into the school -- but had not prepared for a threat at the beginning of the school day.

Gurney said the lockdown was still in place when lunch periods at the high school were getting started, which presented a challenge that will require more planning.

"We had 1,500 hungry teenagers up there, and we didn't have a mechanism for feeding them," Gurney said.

Gurney said the school lockdown last week in nearby Walpole was on his mind as he handled security at the Keene schools, although the Walpole circumstances were different. On Friday, a 14-year-old male student at Walpole Elementary School shot himself in the face with a shotgun. He is being treated at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.