Police: Arrest made in bomb threats
JEFFERSON – State police told parents attending a building and grounds meeting Monday evening at Jefferson-Morgan High School that an arrest was made related to the recent rash of bomb threats in the school district. Trooper Bart Lemansky did not elaborate any further about the arrest and members of the school board told parents it was the first time they heard about it.
About three dozen parents attended the 5 p.m. committee meeting to express their fear, frustration and anger over multiple aspects of how the threats were handled by the school district. State troopers, Greene County Sheriff Brian Tennant, school board members and administrators fielded their questions.
“Why were children not evacuated during the last bomb threat?” asked Joy Eggleston, mother of two students. Others echoed this question to administrators in attendance.
Of the five threats, two which took place at the end of the 2013-14 school year, students were evacuated to safe locations for the first three. In the two most recent threats, the district called an early dismissal and parents received a one-call notice referring to “unforeseen circumstances.”
Eggleston and others who asked why the district did not evacuate for the last two threats were told each threat is evaluated on a case-by-case basis by assistant principal Brandon Robinson.
Robinson repeatedly said the district evaluates their plan of how to handle such threats after an incident and it is updated after each new threat.
“Each threat is different,” Robinson said.
Those in attendance broke into applause when school board member Dan Wagner said, “Every time we have a bomb threat it should be out the door; it’s as simple as that.”
Wagner received more applause when he suggested a PowerPoint presentation be given to the students showing them what could happen if they are caught making a bomb threat.
“Bring police in and do a PowerPoint that says, ‘This is where you are going to end up.’ Let them see the uniforms and let them see the consequences,” Wagner said. “Have an assembly.”
Eric Stull, parent of an elementary student and member of the National Guard, asked if the safe locations students are taken to after an evacuation are swept for bombs prior to the students being taken there. He was told these locations are checked prior to moving the students.
A few of the parents were upset when some of the established emergency locations were not used, leaving them scrambling to locate their children.
Lemansky told parents it wasn’t always a good idea to immediately announce where students would be moved to as it could result in accidents as parents raced to get to a location. It also opens up the possibility the information could go to someone with a nefarious intent.
More than anything, parents who addressed the panel seemed especially upset about what they perceived as a lack of communication during and after the threats and the fear instilled in their children when they had no answers to give them.
School board President Lisa Maddich was one of a few board members who said they too were “afraid” for their children.
Elementary parent Beth Bedilion asked, “What is being done to make them (the threats) stop? My oldest is in sixth grade and doesn’t want to go to the high school,” she said.
Bedilion told the panel she feared each time an idle threat is made people are becoming more complacent.
“We all think in our heart of hearts that (a carried out threat) can’t happen but in this day and age that we live in it is a possibility,” she added. “Everybody is going to take it lightly and then something is going to happen.”