Rash of school threats results in lockdowns

A rash of pranks involving threatening messages at local schools have disrupted classes and heightened fears but could be on the wane now that administrators and police have begun to identify and punish those involved.

Last week, administrators locked down three public schools serving Brookfield-Lyons Township High School in Western Springs, George Washington Middle School in Lyons and Park Junior High in LaGrange-after staff found threats scrawled in bathrooms.

A threat was also reported last week at St. Joseph High School, a Catholic school in Westchester that serves boys and girls from many near west suburbs including Riverside, North Riverside and Brookfield.

On April 29, Lyons Township High School’s South Campus was locked down for 2.5 hours as Western Spring police and the Cook County Bomb Squad searched the building. The search turned up nothing, but students were confined to classrooms from 8 a.m. until 10:30 a.m.

LT’s South Campus serves some 2,000 freshmen and sophomore students. The district serves the southern half of Brookfield.

As of May 2, Western Springs police were closing in on a student suspect after gathering evidence and receiving tips from other LT students.

District 204 Supt. Dennis Kelly said that if the suspect is confirmed, the school will seek the maximum penalty, including a two-year expulsion.

“That’s the biggest deterrent,” Kelly said. “These kids can’t imagine by doing one of these pranks that something can happen to them. When we go to an expulsion, it will be for the two-year maximum that’s allowed.

“We’re calling this an act of violence.”

Kelly said that anyone involved in making such threats could face criminal charges.

In addition to the threat at LTHS, a threat written on a bathroom stall at George Washington Middle School in Lyons on May 2 resulted in that school being locked down for two hours.

District 103 Supt. Michael Warner confirmed that the threat was discovered by a staff member at 12:30 p.m., immediately putting the school into a lockdown, though class work still continued in those classrooms.

By dismissal time at 2:35 p.m., Warner said that Lyons police had identified a possible suspect. In the meantime, the rest of the students were dismissed in an orderly fashion, class by class.

“I feel pretty confident that we have the student who wrote the threat identified,” Warner said. “If that’s the case, it could result in two years’ expulsion.”

Last week’s incident at Washington Middle School was its second in a month. On April 14 at 1:30 p.m., a threat was discovered written on a desk, citing a date of April 17 for the threat to be carried out.

By 2:30 p.m., a sixth-grade student had been identified as the one who wrote the threat. At an administrative hearing on April 22, that student was expelled for the remainder of the school year and for all of the 2008-09 school year.

“We’re going to take every threat seriously,” Warner said. “At the same time, we’re going to act as quickly as we can with law enforcement to identify and discipline that student to the fullest extent.

“There are going to be consequences, even if they don’t intend to follow through on the threat,” Warner added. “It disrupts the educational process, scares students and staff members, and we’re not going to tolerate it.”

On May 1, Park Junior High in LaGrange also went into lockdown after graffiti of a threatening nature was found in a student bathroom, stating that the threat would be carried out on May 2.

The school was locked down from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday and classes resumed. However, extra-curricular activities were canceled and on May 2, police returned with bomb-sniffing dogs to re-search the school prior to classes beginning that morning.

Administrators said the threats were of the “copycat” variety, part of a series of similar threats found at grade schools, high schools and colleges throughout the Chicago area in the wake of the shootings at Northern Illinois University on Feb. 14.

“Things like this happen in cycles,” Kelly said. “Fifteen years ago it was bomb threats and in the seventies it was fire alarms. It’s copycat behavior.

“But like bomb threats, not very many people are willing to take a chance because very many bad things have happened in the last year.”

Kelly said that District 204 had met on April 25 at LT with area police and school administrators to talk about what to do in case the district schools were confronted with similar incidents.

In each case, the schools followed the same procedure, Kelly said.

Students have been very cooperative in helping administrators and police gather leads. According to Kelly, “They always do. Our kids care enough that they will come forward and give us information.”