Schools Across Oklahoma Receive Threats

Several schools across the metro have received threats in the last two days.

On Thursday morning, administrators at Guthrie Junior High School were notified of a possible threat to student safety. The Guthrie Police Department investigated and took one person into custody.

Superintendent Dr. Mike Simpson said the school shooting this week in Florida brings heightened awareness, but the district focuses on safety year-round.

He said, “I always tell our staff that before education can happen, safety has to happen first.”

Moore Police Department has also been busy dealing with threats. On Thursday, a 16-year-old from Southmoore High School was taken to a treatment facility. Police say the teenager made a “kill list” with actual names of students he wanted to target.

On Friday, Moore Police also arrested a student at Central Junior High School for threatening students at his school.

Oklahoma City Police Department is also investigating multiple threats. One is at Western Heights Middle School, where a 13-year-old threatened to bring a gun to school. He did this over Snapchat. Police say he is being held at the juvenile detention center.

OKC Police are looking into two more threats at Oklahoma City Public Schools as well. Students sent News 9 a screen shot of a Snapchat. It reads “We shooting up Northeast tomorrow & John Marshall on Monday”.

The Snapchat continues to say, “Yall have been warned”. 

OKC Police issued the following statement:

Thursday evening, our officers were notified of a possible threat of violence that referenced two different schools in OKC. We also received calls from police departments in Kansas and Virginia advising of the threat, since they had schools with similar names. It was reportedly causing panic there as well. Investigators quickly got to work, following up with the person named in the social media account in question. Through investigation, detectives were able to determine that he was not involved in any of the posts.

Further investigation revealed that a 17-year-old female actually went to the trouble of creating a fake account in the boy's name to make the posts to social media. That female was taken into custody late yesterday and transported to a local juvenile detention facility. Her charges are Terrorism Hoax and False Personation. Great work by investigators!

Police and schools say every threat is being taken seriously and those who are sending the threats will be held responsible if caught.

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