Teacher Threatened To Shoot Students

, "A Riverside County [California] high school teacher allegedly threatened her students with violence Tuesday when they wouldn't quiet down. "She said, 'If you all don't shut up, I'm going to get a gun, and I'm going to shoot all of you,'" a female senior, who preferred to remain anonymous, told CBS 2 News Wednesday. "She was frustrated because we wouldn't stop talking and do our work."

Students: Teacher Threatened To Shoot Us
Thursday March 22 11:22 AM EST

A Riverside County high school teacher allegedly threatened her students with violence Tuesday when they wouldn't quiet down.

More than 30 students from Paloma Valley High School in Menifee claim that English teacher Barbara Brown told them in a fit of anger that she would get a gun and shoot them if they continued to talk during class.

"She said, 'If you all don't shut up, I'm going to get a gun, and I'm going to shoot all of you,'" a female senior, who preferred to remain anonymous, told CBS 2 News Wednesday. "She was frustrated because we wouldn't stop talking and do our work."

After making the alleged statement, Brown apparently left the classroom for 10 minutes. Witnesses told CBS 2 News that when the English teacher returned, she was composed and in possession of a portable CD player.

"She put a CD in for us to listen to while we did our essay," the female senior said.

Several students decided to report events to school administrators, and each of Brown's students was asked to fill out a "declaration of incident."

Copies of witness statements were reviewed by CBS 2 News. They were all fairly consistent, alleging that Brown threatened to use a gun to restore order in the classroom.

"When she said that, everybody just got quiet and didn't say a word," the female witness said. "Everybody was kind of in shock that she would say something like that. We were just sitting there.

"We didn't take her seriously, seriously. But we were like, 'Okay' And we were quiet and did our work."

Brown, a credentialed teacher for at least six years, has been placed on suspension pending further investigation of the alleged incident.

Neither she nor her coworkers would talk to CBS 2 News. However, school district assistant superintendent Robert Erikson said that the students' allegations are being taken seriously.

"We are looking at it very carefully," he told CBS 2 News. "Our number one priority is still safety."

But a male member of Brown's English class told CBS 2 News that officials aren't treating the case with the same sobriety they would a student threat.

"I think people have under-reacted," he said. "If I made a statement like that, I would go to jail.

"You don't know what people are thinking with all of the high school shootings going on and everything."

Riverside County sheriff's investigators are also looking into the matter.