At least 12 different schools throughout Northeast Ohio received social media threats last week, including one directed at Streetsboro City Schools.
On Sept. 11, the Streetsboro police received a call regarding a threat directed at Streetsboro City Schools that came from a veterans affairs hotline, a 24-hour call center that caters to the needs of veterans.
“Someone called in and said that they had been told by another party that they were making threats against one of our schools,” Streetsboro Police Lt. Richard Polivka said. “It was supposed to be coming from another party that this caller had talked with. We did receive a recording of that call from this hotline and our officers listened to it and, based on a lot of things, they felt that it was probably some type of swatting or a hoax. Nonetheless, we treated it seriously, and it’s currently under investigation.”
Legal procedures are required to gain access to protected information, making the investigation a lengthy process.
“I’m hoping in the near future we’ll be able to make an arrest for this, but in the meantime, we’re investigating it and following all the steps,” Polivka said. “A lot of times when people make these hoax calls they use services that, in their hopes, would make them anonymous, so we have to get court orders, subpoenas, in order to get some of the information, but we have a detective working on that. We hope that we’re going to be able to track it down. In the meantime, yesterday we did have extra officers in the schools, and we do have SROs [armed school resource officers] that are always there at the schools.”
So far, the social media rumors about school shooting threats in Portage County have turned out to be hoaxes.
One rumor surrounding Southeast Local Schools started on social media after a student made a joke during lunch time.
“The only thing we’ve had to deal with is some kids saying some things around the lunch table to try to be humorous, at least that they thought would be funny,” Southeast School Superintendent Robert Dunn said. “We do not take any threats of any kind lightly. A thorough investigation, including severe punishments, occur even if they were just trying to be funny in their minds. So we haven’t had any threats just yet, any outside threats; only a couple kids saying something that they thought was funny at lunchtime.”
Any student making threats against Southeast schools gets an automatic suspension and recommendation for expulsion and could be subject to counseling. The sheriff is immediately notified about any threat situation, in case a home visit is required to make sure that there are no weapons that a student can gain access to.
“We want to make sure our kids know, even saying something off the cuff like, ‘I hate this place, I should blow it up,’ or whatever, we’re not ever going to take those lightly,” Dunn said. “We’re going to get law enforcement involved and we’re going to get an investigation started and just make sure the student is safe first of all, and our other students are safe. Almost 99% of these, they’re just simply kids thinking they’re being funny and, in this day and age, that can’t be taken lightly.”