Record-Journal
10-12-2007, 12:53 AM
WALLINGFORD -- Frustrated school administrators and police who have dealt with six bomb scares at Lyman Hall High School since the start of the school year are sending a clear message to those responsible: You will be caught and prosecuted.
The state of Hawaii agreed Thursday to prosecute a juvenile suspect in connection with two threats at Lyman Hall that morning. The suspect is believed to be a former Wallingford student.
At 7:01 a.m., as students were arriving, a male juvenile called the high school with a reported threat of a bomb.
Within minutes, a student reported to the office with a text message of a threat on her cell phone. Shortly after, a student reported that the word “bomb” had been written on a wall or a stall door in one of the boys’ bathrooms.
Police were called, and students were evacuated for a short time while the school was searched. No suspicious materials were found and students returned to the building once it was determined to be safe.
Police Chief Douglas Dortenzio said his department determined early in the day that the phone call and text message originated from a phone in Hawaii connected to a juvenile who is a former Wallingford resident and former student in the town’s school system.
“We aren’t sure if he actually went to Lyman Hall because we haven’t determined when he relocated,” Dortenzio said. “But there is a connection.”
Because the suspect is a juvenile under Hawaii state law, his name has not been released. Police said they also have a “very strong suspect” in another bomb threat scrawled on the wall in a girls’ bathroom earlier this month.
From March 2005 to Thursday, there have been more than 20 bomb scares at the town’s two high schools — two of them at Sheehan High School. No suspicious materials have been found in any of the incidents.
The threats “are an insult to the students and to me,” Lyman Hall Principal David Bryant said Thursday.
“Ninety-nine percent of the student body wants to be here, cares about their education and is proud of their school. There are one or two that either don’t understand the disruption they cause or they don’t care.”
Every time it happens, at least half a class period is lost, police must spend a minimum of 10 hours to investigate, and staff and students become upset and distracted, officials said.
Police and staff conduct a search of the school every time a threat is deemed credible. Each case, Bryant said, is evaluated separately.
Because a number of the threats have been written on bathroom walls, all but two bathrooms have been locked. Students now must sign in and out with staff posted at the two bathrooms.
“Make no mistake, the people responsible will be arrested,” Lt. Marc Mikulski said. “And what these kids may not realize is they’re facing a felony charge of threatening. If they’re convicted, this will follow them through college and job applications, basically through the rest of their lives.”
Officer Shawn Fairbrother, who is investigating another of the threats, said investigations “take up hours of our time, but we can’t afford not to follow up. It’s a drain on resources all the way around, from the police to the schools and, in some cases, the fire department, when they get called out.”
He said students might get the impression they are “getting away with this because it can take time to make an arrest. But eventually it catches up to you, and there are consequences.
“And I don’t think, given the violence we’ve seen in schools around the country, that a judge will be inclined to dismiss charges like this.”
“We will set a very, very serious example with these cases when arrests are made,” Superintendent Dale Wilson said. “In addition to arrest, any student will be facing a year’s expulsion from school.”
Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. agreed that the town “has to make a statement. Certainly the town supports the administration and the police department in their efforts to find the party responsible and hold them accountable, and the cooperative relationship between those two organizations, I think, is one reason they may resolve it so quickly.”
Wilson said this was the first time he has heard of someone from out of state calling in a threat to a school that he is not attending.
“It’s the first I can remember of anything like this,” he said. “But at least we were able to determine that this person was not in Connecticut at the time, and that he is still in Hawaii and not in the building, which was a relief. Students were able to go back to class without worrying.”
There is no set criteria for what constitutes a credible threat, Wilson said, and each case is evaluated separately.
“If there is no indication of a time or date, it limits what we can do,” he said.
“Of course we can search, but it may be for something planned at a later date, or it may be false. So each time this happens we call the police, we evaluate the validity of it and we determine what action to take from there.”
Students are typically evacuated and the school is searched, which takes about 45 minutes.
“We’re on the block schedule, so that’s about half a class,” Bryant said. “The kids don’t get to go home, which is why I don’t think that’s the motivation. I think someone just really wants to cause disruption.”
Once students return to class, they and staff members can have difficulty focusing on class work, another disruption Bryant believes the culprits may enjoy causing.
Bryant sent a letter to parents Thursday explaining the situation, which is standard procedure whenever there is a threat.
Dortenzio said he wants to ask the school system to send a letter to parents that goes beyond a description of the event, citing Wednesday’s school shooting in Cleveland.
“I think we need to ask for their assistance in talking to the kids,” he said. “Given what happened at the high school in Cleveland this week and what has happened at schools in the recent past, this is no joke.”
The state of Hawaii agreed Thursday to prosecute a juvenile suspect in connection with two threats at Lyman Hall that morning. The suspect is believed to be a former Wallingford student.
At 7:01 a.m., as students were arriving, a male juvenile called the high school with a reported threat of a bomb.
Within minutes, a student reported to the office with a text message of a threat on her cell phone. Shortly after, a student reported that the word “bomb” had been written on a wall or a stall door in one of the boys’ bathrooms.
Police were called, and students were evacuated for a short time while the school was searched. No suspicious materials were found and students returned to the building once it was determined to be safe.
Police Chief Douglas Dortenzio said his department determined early in the day that the phone call and text message originated from a phone in Hawaii connected to a juvenile who is a former Wallingford resident and former student in the town’s school system.
“We aren’t sure if he actually went to Lyman Hall because we haven’t determined when he relocated,” Dortenzio said. “But there is a connection.”
Because the suspect is a juvenile under Hawaii state law, his name has not been released. Police said they also have a “very strong suspect” in another bomb threat scrawled on the wall in a girls’ bathroom earlier this month.
From March 2005 to Thursday, there have been more than 20 bomb scares at the town’s two high schools — two of them at Sheehan High School. No suspicious materials have been found in any of the incidents.
The threats “are an insult to the students and to me,” Lyman Hall Principal David Bryant said Thursday.
“Ninety-nine percent of the student body wants to be here, cares about their education and is proud of their school. There are one or two that either don’t understand the disruption they cause or they don’t care.”
Every time it happens, at least half a class period is lost, police must spend a minimum of 10 hours to investigate, and staff and students become upset and distracted, officials said.
Police and staff conduct a search of the school every time a threat is deemed credible. Each case, Bryant said, is evaluated separately.
Because a number of the threats have been written on bathroom walls, all but two bathrooms have been locked. Students now must sign in and out with staff posted at the two bathrooms.
“Make no mistake, the people responsible will be arrested,” Lt. Marc Mikulski said. “And what these kids may not realize is they’re facing a felony charge of threatening. If they’re convicted, this will follow them through college and job applications, basically through the rest of their lives.”
Officer Shawn Fairbrother, who is investigating another of the threats, said investigations “take up hours of our time, but we can’t afford not to follow up. It’s a drain on resources all the way around, from the police to the schools and, in some cases, the fire department, when they get called out.”
He said students might get the impression they are “getting away with this because it can take time to make an arrest. But eventually it catches up to you, and there are consequences.
“And I don’t think, given the violence we’ve seen in schools around the country, that a judge will be inclined to dismiss charges like this.”
“We will set a very, very serious example with these cases when arrests are made,” Superintendent Dale Wilson said. “In addition to arrest, any student will be facing a year’s expulsion from school.”
Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. agreed that the town “has to make a statement. Certainly the town supports the administration and the police department in their efforts to find the party responsible and hold them accountable, and the cooperative relationship between those two organizations, I think, is one reason they may resolve it so quickly.”
Wilson said this was the first time he has heard of someone from out of state calling in a threat to a school that he is not attending.
“It’s the first I can remember of anything like this,” he said. “But at least we were able to determine that this person was not in Connecticut at the time, and that he is still in Hawaii and not in the building, which was a relief. Students were able to go back to class without worrying.”
There is no set criteria for what constitutes a credible threat, Wilson said, and each case is evaluated separately.
“If there is no indication of a time or date, it limits what we can do,” he said.
“Of course we can search, but it may be for something planned at a later date, or it may be false. So each time this happens we call the police, we evaluate the validity of it and we determine what action to take from there.”
Students are typically evacuated and the school is searched, which takes about 45 minutes.
“We’re on the block schedule, so that’s about half a class,” Bryant said. “The kids don’t get to go home, which is why I don’t think that’s the motivation. I think someone just really wants to cause disruption.”
Once students return to class, they and staff members can have difficulty focusing on class work, another disruption Bryant believes the culprits may enjoy causing.
Bryant sent a letter to parents Thursday explaining the situation, which is standard procedure whenever there is a threat.
Dortenzio said he wants to ask the school system to send a letter to parents that goes beyond a description of the event, citing Wednesday’s school shooting in Cleveland.
“I think we need to ask for their assistance in talking to the kids,” he said. “Given what happened at the high school in Cleveland this week and what has happened at schools in the recent past, this is no joke.”