Threats
 

So I was wondering what do you guys think of this incident that happened at my school...
Yesterday a note was found, which said that there will be a shooting today at my school during our pep rally. Of course our school took it seriously and called the cops and everything to be there today at the pep rally, but I did not go to it because I had work. So what do you guys think, was this a serious threat or just another kid trying to get attention and cause a commotion.

Re: Threats
 

I can't tell. Matter of fact, nobody can--and that's why you've got to take all of these things seriously. What measures you take will depend on the situation, but you can't just write it off (absolutely no pun intended) when someone writes out a threat.

Re: Threats
 

While it sounds like it may have been just a prank the school had no choice but to take it seriously due to liability issues. If they had just ignored the note after it was brought to thier attention and then an actual shooting had taken place then the board of ed, the school system, and the individuals that had been aware of the note would have been held liable. With society today, and incidents that have happened elsewhere, people don't want to take chances like they may have years ago.

The same thing goes for a false fire alarm. You don't know if it's real or not but you still evacuate the building and the fire department and police are notified.

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Sounds like your school deserves some +rep. They did what they could to avoid a problem if it wasnt a prank/joke. In the end it doesnt matter too much whether it is a false alarm or not as long as everyone does what they should and no one gets hurt.

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I don't think this is a question that any of us can answer, but it is important that all threats be taken seriously as if they were real. History has shown that these threats just cannot be written off.

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Our neighboring county, Culpeper, closed all schools two days ago because of anonymous bomb threats. It's sad these kinds of things are happening now. :(

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If you google your school district web page and campus safety procedures, you should find the district's policy and procedures that must be followed according to the situations presented.

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Last year alone, our school was evacuated two or three times because of anonymous bomb threats, including one for which we were taken outside into snow and ~30 degree weather for an hour in our stadium before being released home.

But schools have no choice. A threat is a threat, and you can't simply disregard one because it's the third one this week. When you do, something will happen, and the school will be toast. Unfortunately, 99% of the time, if there is a threat, it's just for thrills or attention. Which is ironic, because you don't want to draw attention to yourself after the act, but nonetheless, it happens. Almost all the time, if somethings going to happen, there will not be a threat. (I hope I don't have to eat my words) Someone who really wants to inflict harm or damage will not jeopardize his plan by giving warning.

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And FIRST hasn't been immune neither. If I recall correctly, the New Jersey regional was evacuated one year due to a threat.

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Last year, a student wrote "Im gunna blow up da skool" on the stall of a bathroom in our middle school. The administration, upon seeing this, evacuated the school due to the bomb threat. Was this serious? No one really knows. But they did what they were supposed to do according to the procedure.

Throughout the next week or so, there were many "copycat" threats made in our high school. However, in these instances, the administration did nothing, just writing it off as a prank. Sure, they tried to find the students that did it; I even recall our principal making an announcement-"The bomb threat that was scheduled for today is cancelled. If anyone has any information on the bomb threat that didn't happen, please turn over that information to administration." He decided to make light of the situation based on the previous events of the week. But what if one of these "pranks" had been real?

As Andrew pointed out, 99% of the time, it is usually a joke, but there is still that 1% that they take into account, especially with the recent string of school shootings.

Re: Threats
 

Unfortunately for us all, the knowledge that every threat will cause such a broad reaction is in itself a strong weapon in the hands of someone bent on causing havoc.

For example, it would only take one mischievous individual to make a series of such threats from widely-dispersed public phones, over a sustained period. Assuming that they weren't stupid criminals, and didn't tell their friends, and nobody witnessed it, it's pretty much untraceable. But everyone's on edge, everyone's paranoid, and everyone's utterly impotent—it's terrorism, in a truer sense of the word than the one to which we've lately become accustomed.

The accepted standard of due diligence demands that these threats be dealt with on an individual basis, and that precautions be taken, but as Andrew pointed out, there's really no evidence to support a correlation between threats and actual acts of violence. This uncertainty underscores the brutal fact that no matter the level of precaution (short of a police state), there's always the chance that someone is going to try to kill you for no good reason at all. And unless you want to go down the path of being perpetually consumed by fear, at some point, you're forced to just go about life, and hope nobody chooses you as a target.

You never know if the next threat is going to be the real thing, and you never can know. As long as there are idiots and malfeasants who would wish harm upon you, you're at risk. In this instance, the authorities seem to have done their part; your part is just to understand that the best you can do is to maintain as great a state of normalcy as possible. Panic only satiates their desire for wanton chaos, so your best bet is to brave the 0° weather and the evacuation, and hope that the entire event is as boring as can be imagined—after all, what thrill is to be gained by knowing that a group of people calmly filed out of a building, and found something else to do for the rest of the day?

Re: Threats
 

IRI we had the infamous fire drill...still think it was one of the teams who had a bad auton period

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Someone tell me why a psychopathic (thats what it takes to bomb a high school) killer would warn his victims before he did his deed?

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Becuase sometimes they really arent sure they want to do it. Sometimes they call with half a hope they will be caught so that they wont have to kill those people. Someone who will bomb a school isnt usually a physcopath. usually they are mentaly unstable and can think of no better way out.

Re: Threats
 

Also, some of them may just want attention and not actually carry an incident fully out. They may feel that other individuals, society, the government, a company.......whatever, has done something to them and they want it brought to attention.


As for the incidents in the schools think of this, what will get more attention, threating to bomb an office building or a school full of children?

Re: Threats
 

Threats suck, i no. Our school last year, had the highest number of bomb threats in the country. 38. I can never take it seriously anymore, unfortunatly.

Re: Threats
 

I have a friend (who shall remain unnamed) Who's grandfather used to call in a bomb threat every time her mother didn't feel like going to school...
Some people are just too stupid to know not to do these types of things. I believe that one of the people that was caught for a bomb threat last year at our school ended up owing the school around 12,000 dollars for daily operation fees.
Not a good Idea for moral reasons, and definitely not a good Idea for financial/legal reasons.

Re: Threats
 

The school I graduated from gets numerous bomb threats a week. There's no visible (to the students) evidence that they do anything about it, but the staff is notified and all that good junk.

Re: Threats
 

Re: Threats
 

I've been unlucky enough to experience three of these threats personally, all three in Highschool.

The first one a kid put a kitchen timer he stole from home-ec in a locker and you'd walk by hearing "tick, tick, tick". I heard it and reported it, and unfortunatly the poor kid whose locker it was was arrested even though he was innocent. Luckily it was summer and we got to go home early.

The second some kid took his dad's old briefcase to school and put it in the courtyard of our school. I was on lunch break, saw the briefcase sitting in the middle of a courtyard pretty suspiciously and reported that one too. They called in the watergun robot to destroy it.

And the third incident was the worst I've seen. My woodshop teacher Mr. Lalancette was teaching shop, and had to leave to use the bathroom, well a good five minutes had passed and we all kind of got concerned. I had to use the bathroom anyways, and went looking for him. I got to the mens room, and I see the teacher standing in the doorway with a blank stare on his face, and his complexion was as white as a ghost. Now this teacher was in the army, and it takes a lot to make him scared, so this was pretty serious. I asked him what was wrong, and he said very softly "go get the cops". I didnt hesitate and ran to the police substation we had in our school. Turns out somebody had brought a briefcase to school, and in the briefcase was a kitchen timer and some random wires that stuck out the sides. The school was put on lockdown for three hours, dogs were brought in, the bomb squad combed the place, and every student was searched.

It was very very scary to see what someone's idea of a practical joke can lead to. I'm happy to say though, that all those involved in the pranks were brought to justice, by either the school, or the police. Sometimes being the rat is better than risking your life.

~Greg

Re: Threats
 

Well we came to find out that it was a fake, but some kid did think that it would be funny to scare everyone so during the peprally he hit his drum in a way that made it seem like a gun shot, but got off because he said he was just joking around.

Re: Threats
 

Consider that the sheer weight of seeing a school evacuation and law enforcement presence, or the major possibility of the legal issues that follow, may have actually stunned the threat-maker into not going through with his plans.

Re: Threats
 

What is it with kitchen timers, or digital LED displays that, in combination with a pile of colourful wires, makes everyone think "bomb"? I know that it's a dramatic convention which exists so that exposition isn't necessary when James Bond walks into a room and sees an unfamiliar device; but in real life, you'd have to be all kinds of stupid to build bomb which ticks ominously and unstealthily, or displays in large red numerals the time remaining before it explodes. It seems like a disproportionate amount of resources are used in dealing with the things that are least likely to actually do damage, while the real threats, like pipe bombs and incendiaries, aren't nearly so easy to detect. I wonder how many people would alert the authorities if they saw a twelve-inch piece of black iron pipe, with sealed endcaps, sitting on top of a garbage can in the cafeteria? (It doesn't take a rocket scientist to pack it with things that will cause it to explode on command.)

And incidentally, how is that a legal search? (Unless, of course, everyone consented—which is not likely, if there's enough crime around to warrant a permanent police presence in the school.)

Re: Threats
 

He said there is a police substation in his school. I think permanent police presence has been weighed and agreed upon already for some reason or another.

Good thing the HS I went to never got subjected to this kind of stupidity of a bomb threat by the student body.

Although, in grade school we did have a sniper threat. That was an interesting year. Every time we walked outside we would look at the building across the street for something shiny (scope).

Again nothing ever came of it, as with most of these incidents everyone has described, but the threat was there.

Re: Threats
 

Although the administration may want the students searched, the fourth amendment still applies. Locker searches are legal, as the lockers are considered school property. However the search of your person is illegal without a warrant, probable cause or consent of aforementioned person.

I'm pretty sure consent must be explicit, so that rules out the "They [students] didn't object" argument. There is no way they had probable cause or warrants on hundreds of students.

I know at Watertown High, students are regularly searched by the administration. Very rarely do they object, because they think that its just allowed. Even with probable cause, the administration still does not have the legal right to search your person. These days too many people forget their rights. This is evident in the passing of the Presidential Military Order, which revoked the right of habeas corpus to "unlawful enemy combatants". As a society, if we wish to preserve the freedom and democracy won by our forefathers, we really need to educate the youth on their inalienable rights.