Vandals start fire at Grand Prairie elementary school

by Kirk Dickey of of Grand Prairie TODAY

GRAND PRAIRIE — Police, firefighters and school officials are looking into a Sept. 7 fire at Lyndon B. Johnson Elementary.

Preliminary reports suggest that a group of children started a small fire in a third-grade classroom by breaking a window and throwing a smoke bomb into the school that evening. The smoke bomb, or other incendiary device, landed on top of a file cabinet and started the fire, according to Grand Prairie Independent School District Communications Director Sam Buchmeyer.

The fire did not spread beyond the file cabinet, which Buchmeyer said was fortunate. There were paper and books all around the cabinet, but none of that caught fire.

“If there is any kind of upside here, it's that the smoke bomb or whatever they threw in there didn't ignite anything more than what was on top of the file cabinet,” Buchmeyer said. “Obviously in any situation like that, it could be much, much worse, but in our case it just stopped right there and all it caused was smoke damage.”

The students in that classroom were moved into the library while damage was assessed and repaired.

“The classroom smells like smoke, but school was able to go on fine,” Buchmeyer said. “It didn't disrupt any other classes. It was contained to that one classroom and they anticipate being able to clean up the majority of that classroom.”

LBJ has cameras and police are now reviewing the tapes. Buchmeyer said the tapes, and possibly some eyewitnesses, put student-aged children at the scene around the time of the incident.

Other students appear to have gotten into the building earlier in the day, but they do not seem to have done any damage at that time.

The school district is investigating along with police.

Principal Tonia Walker made an announcement, telling the students what had happened. She asked that any students with pertinent information come forward and talk to their teachers or to her.

The school is sending information home to parents to let them know what had happened and that the investigation was continuing.

“If we find out these were GPISD students, there will be appropriate punishment,” Buchmeyer said.

“I am pretty sure it will be fairly severe. We tried to learn some lessons with the Lee fire.”

In that June 2001 case, a former student set multiple fires in Lee Middle School, destroying the library, the south hall and part of the east hall of Lee's Main building. About 80 percent of the school had to be razed and rebuilt.

The fire destroyed computers, televisions and other electronic equipment, as well as many teaching supplies, according to an official history on the Lee Middle School website.