Bomb threats
A pair of ninth graders stand charged with one of the series of bomb threats that repeatedly disrupted classes at Laurel Highlands High School and police apprehended a third student Wednesday in connection with another threat at the school Friday. It is unclear yet whether the students are suspected of issuing the other bomb threats or if other students will be implicated.
Police have also charged six teen-aged girls with phoning in two bomb threats at the Uniontown Area High School.
These kids probably thought they were pulling a hilarious prank. What could be funnier than watching teachers and principals scamper to evacuate a building or emergency workers scour the hallways? Sure beats trig.
What these miscreants are finding out now is the joke’s on them. Schools, police and courts don’t find much amusement in terroristic threats. And that’s what bomb threats are.
No one knows if the danger is real or a prank, and so schools must react as if each threat is a potentially deadly attack. Bomb squads, police and fire departments incur costs. Schools are also on the hook for added transportation costs. Classroom time is lost. More importantly, students lose their sense of security that the school is safe. Even bogus threats leave people with the sense of unease that what if this time the little boy isn’t crying wolf.
School officials said they intend to exact restitution, and they should. But paying money is a much simpler demand than restoring peace of mind. Terrible things can happen in schools, as Red Lake, Minn., is finding out this week. A teen-ager shot his grandparents, then drove to his school and opened fired on classmates, killing nine and wounding seven more, before turning the gun on himself.
The community is shocked. And as happened after Columbine, every school across this country is faced anew with looking at not only its security practices, but its policies in identifying whether worrisome students are merely grappling with teen-age angst or are planning a deadly attack.
As it turned out, the Laurel Highlands and Uniontown bomb threats thankfully fall into the warped teen-age genre. But the schools didn’t know, and neither did the students. Part of any punishment meted out should include school assemblies in which the guilty must stand before their classmates and apologize.