Text Message Autocorrect Results in Police Lockdown

IMHO, people should spell out their words in text messages. Otherwise you get embarrassing mistakes. Then your whole school gets locked down. This just happened in Florida. Srsly.

On Wednesday, a student at West Hall middle or high school in Gainesville, Fla., tried to send a buddy a text with the message “gunna be at west hall today.” The autocorrect feature on this student’s phone changed it to “gunman.”

So the text — which also went to the wrong number — read “gunman be at west hall today.” Someone reported this to school officials and West Hall middle and high schools were locked down. The lockdown ended a couple hours later after school officials figured out what happened, according to the Gainesville Times.

This would be funnier if it didn’t come three days after a deadly school shooting in Ohio. That tragedy, as well as the legacy of Columbine High School in Colorado and of Virginia Tech, appropriately sends school officials on edge anytime someone uses the word “gun.”

Still, you kind of have to laugh. It’s not clear what brand the phone was in this case, but anyone with autocorrect has accidentally sent a text saying, perhaps, that you’re sending the dog to the “broiler” when you mean “groomer” or maybe “renown” instead of “Tebow” or something inappropriate when you meant “pizza” and so on.

But “gunman”?