Nikolas Cruz stepped out of his Uber he had taken to Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida, at 2:19 p.m, Feb. 14, with a duffel bag containing an AR-15. Over the course of the next eight minutes, he slaughtered 17 and injured dozens more. This was one of the deadliest school shootings ever. Cruz exited the building with the students and went to a nearby Subway where he ordered a medium fountain drink.
Just hours after the shooting, threats directed towards schools nationally exploded on social media with the Educator’s School Safety Network reporting at least 50 threats in the same day of the shooting. The next week presented rates of school threats increasing by upwards of 400 percent.
Educator’s School Safety Network reported Virginia as one of the states with ‘unusually high’ rates of school threats with a total near 20. Out of these, two directly affected HCPS.
Principal Cynthia Prieto received word of the first threat just one day after the shooting in Florida on Feb. 15.
“We received emails from several students and parents that were worried about a threat they thought had been made to a school in the area. I immediately contacted the assistant superintendent and at about 9 p.m., and we were told that the person who made the threat had been arrested,” Prieto said.
The threat had been put out through Snapchat and ended up being screenshotted and put on over six different Stories. The threat didn’t directly target any specific school, but was assumed to target Harrisonburg.
The surrounding county schools announced they were dealing with the exact same threat. The original photo had been screenshotted and different school names had been edited onto the picture.
The perpetrator was arrested in South Carolina and the incident was declared a hoax.
Relief was short-lived when a second threat was made to HCPS, this time to THMS and SKMS.
“The one that directly affected us was put out through Instagram. The cool thing was that it was seen by several of our students and they immediately forwarded them to me or another adult. The negative was that people were sending it around asking, ‘Hey, who is this?’ and that just spread it. There’s no way of putting a lid on that one,” Prieto said.
An account with the username “schoolshootingskmsthms” was reported on DAAAAAAAATTEEE. The account had one photo picturing an array of supposed guns with the caption, “Skms or thms :).” The perpetrator turned out to be a student at SKMS and was promptly taken into custody.
Because the threat directly targeted HCPS schools, HPD was assigned the task of finding the perpetrator. If the threat applies to multiple schools or is deemed severe enough, HPD can contact the FBI, the U.S. Marshalls and various other federal intelligence agencies.
Resource Officer Ronnie Bowers was alerted of the threat the night of.
“Everytime there is a threat made like that, we obviously have to have a higher alert. Normally, there’s nothing different from a typical day with a few more officers showing up, just a little extra presence. Everyone notices and that sort of puts people on edge, but that’s a normal response to things like [threats],” Bowers said. “I’ve had parents tell me that they don’t want their kids coming to school the day or two after a threat is made, but most kids will just come to school and treat it like a normal day.”
In one instance, a student was pulled out of HHS and homeschooled after the Florida shooting because the student and the family felt that it was no longer safe to be in a school.
As soon as a threat is made to a school, there are two immediate questions that need to be answered.
“The immediate process has two stages. One, we want to verify that it is a legitimate threat made to our school and two is to find that person as quickly as possible. The next question we need to ask ourselves is [if] we need to shutdown schools,” Bowers said.
As soon as there are any concerns about threats, police presence in schools automatically increases, whether the threat is legitimate or not. The schools have to treat every threat as real and legitimate until it can be definitively characterized as a hoax and the perpetrator is caught.
Both threats affecting HCPS after the Florida incident were made over social media and Bowers attributes the increase in threats to the various platforms used to make threats.
“We’ve definitely seen more threats because of social media. It’s so easy to make an account on social media and post a threat. The second part of that is that it goes everywhere. One simple post blows up and everyone knows about it within a couple hours,” Bowers said.
To counter the social media hoaxes, Prieto has taken a proactive stance making announcements to the school in the mornings and afternoons.
“That’s why we talk to you guys about your digital footprint. You have to be careful with what you put out there. Once you hit send, it’s out of your control,” Prieto said.
Despite the fact that both the threats were declared hoaxes, HCPS has taken measures to ensure student safety. Intercom buzzer systems have been installed on every school allowing one way entry only by approval. On top of this, students are being discouraged from letting anyone into the school through side doors.
“If something does happen, I hope we’ve crossed all of our T’s and dotted all of our I’s,” Prieto said.
The two threats were each made by minors. Both are facing felony charges.
“Some people treat it as a joke and some of the people that got caught say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know I could get in this much trouble.’ If you’re a sixteen year old and you say, ‘I was just kidding,’ you’re not a child. You know better and you’re going to pay the consequences,” Prieto said. “It takes up a lot of resources and it gets exhausting to jump every time someone says jump, but it has to happen so that everyone feels safe.”