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Uptick in school shooting threats creating strain on police, districts and parents
Students at Novi High School were sent home early Wednesday, after a threat was found written in a bathroom made school officials shelter everyone in place.
NOVI, Mich. (FOX 2) - Students at Novi High School were sent home early Wednesday after a threat was found written in a bathroom made school officials shelter everyone in place.
The same thing happened at Rochester High School, also today.
"It's the same kind of thing where something was posted in a bathroom, implying someone was going to shoot up a school," said Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard.
On Tuesday South Lyon High School parents were jolted by similar news, just as two were killed and more were hurt in an actual high school shooting in St Louis.
"So we got a notification, an email from the school district, that said there was a threat in the school," said Erin Jedrusik. "There was going to be a shooting today."
That threat was also written on a bathroom wall.
But Jedrusik, who has two kids at South Lyon High School, did not like how things were handled.
"My assumption was everything's left in the building, get the kids out of the school," she said. "Much to my surprise they actually locked down the facility, and locked all the children in their classrooms.
"The concern as a parent, obviously, is that If there is somebody with a gun in the building you've now locked them in a classroom with other children - and their safety's now put into danger so why not evacuate the building."
The incident coming a few weeks after another threat made against East High School in South Lyon.
So what is going on?
"It's hard to wrap your head around, especially given the fact we had a real school shooting here and the terror and fear that that caused and continues to cause," Bouchard said.
The Oxford High School shooting still fresh in the mind of the Oakland County Sheriff, who says extensive resources are exhausted in handling unfounded threats alone.
"Thousands and thousands of hours because we sent people, first and foremost if it's against a school for example, to the school to make sure the school is safe," he said. "To make sure there are no weapons in the school, to make sure like yesterday we went classroom by classroom, to make sure every room was cleared before we released the students out to go home for the day."
The sheriff says a threat is still a crime even if it's a bluff,.or the person making it does not have the means to carry it out. He says kids can do serioius time at Children's Village juvenile home for making false threats.
He says parents really have to know what's going on with their kids.