CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — Law enforcement agencies across the Commonwealth remain on high alert watching for threats of violence directed at school districts following a school shooting in Georgia one week ago. In the last five days, at least six school districts in Virginia have seen some kind of threat of violence, including Brunswick County, York County, Campbell County, Pulaski County, and Chesterfield County.
Tuesday morning, there was an increased police presence at Meadowbrook High School in Chesterfield, after police said a 14-year-old student there made a bomb threat.
Police said they received a report that a 14-year-old boy texted a known adult and claimed to have made a bomb. Police said a hoax device was found at the student's home.
Last Friday, Manchester Middle School was closed "out of an abundance of caution," following an report of a student making an online threat made against the school. Chesterfield Police told CBS 6 they found no evidence that the communicated threat was credible.
Chesterfield Police also investigated another incident Thursday afternoon involving Falling Creek Middle School. The school district said a student reportedly lifted their shirt to show a BB gun in their waistband at a bus stop.
"It's just crazy now in the schools, you want your kids to go to school to have good safety, but it's scary now, it's very scary," Sharod Blakey, a parent of a student at Meadowbrook High, said.
Law enforcement says school threats are common after a school shooting garners national attention, no matter where it happens.
"In the wake of an attack, it's a particularly dangerous time, because of the possibilities of a follow-on attack, that's unrelated but follows on the heels of another attack," Cliff Lent, President of M7 Solutions, an active shooter training and consulting business, said.
Lent spent 24 years in law enforcement, spending some of his time working in a Homeland Security Bureau focusing on school and business safety related to active shooter incidents.
"It plants a seed in their mind, this is something that can cause chaos or disturbance, or get somebody out of a test, or gain notoriety," Lent said.
While most school threats tend to be unfounded, law enforcement officers say they take every threat seriously.
Lent said students behind the school threats can face felony charges in some cases, even if they're considered unfounded.
A common misconception perpetrators seem to share, Lent said, is their ability to remain anonymous.
"Kids frequently think they can remain anonymous if they hide their IP address, or if they use somebody else's phone or gaming device, or make the threat through an encrypted communication app, but that is not the case," Lent said. "Once a threat is made, and public safety is involved, police departments can gain search warrants, through the judges, and then they can identify each and every person that makes that threat, eventually. So, it might not be immediate, but they will be identified."
Lent is cautioning families to be aware of the consequences.
“I don’t think families are aware of the problems that it creates. No one thinks their child is going to do it, obviously they would intervene before it happens, but it’s absolutely worth the conversation with the kids in your household to let them know that the consequences are real, that you will not be anonymous, and that it affects the entire family and potentially the community," Lent said.
School threats, credible or not, take a toll on law enforcement, Lent said.
"It's dangerous on a lot of levels, especially if they think the attack is imminent and police resources descend en mass, rapidly en mass, to a school setting. People can be hurt in their response to the school, people could be hurt in other areas where the police are actually needed, where a false alarm draws attention away to where police officers are actually needed," Lent said.
Though it's not common for parents to be penalized for their child's threats, that could change.
"If they're found to be potentially aware of not taking reasonable steps to stop an actual attack, then we're starting to see parents being charged, and I think we're going to see more of that," Lent said.
Lent recommends schools have well-trained threat assessment professionals and keep in continued contact with students identified to be at risk of violence.
As more threats on made online, Lent encourages those who may see something suspicious to screenshot the threat, or make as many notes as possible, including a name or username behind it. They then recommend calling law enforcement as soon as possible, which can be done anonymously.
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