A 12-year-old boy was arrested by Bellingham police officers on Thursday, Sept 26, after he allegedly made threats that he was going to shoot up Shuksan Middle School.
Officers responded around 6:30 p.m. Thursday to an area in the 2700 block of Alderwood Avenue after callers reported they were aware a student was making threats to bring a firearm and “shoot up the school” the next day, Claudia Murphy, a lieutenant at the Bellingham Police Department, said in an email.
Four students reported to a responsible adult that they feared the threat could be carried out and that they feared for their lives, Murphy said.
Interviews with students and adults allowed law enforcement to establish probable cause for felony harassment, Murphy said.
Murphy said the threats by the student were made verbally, and Shuksan Middle School Principal Allison Chryst told parents in an email students passed along information they had seen on social media.
The 12-year-old was taken into custody and booked into the Whatcom County Juvenile Detention facility a few hours later on four counts of felony harassment, Murphy said.
No weapon was located and the investigation remains ongoing, Murphy said.
“School and student safety is very important to all of us, and we are grateful to the students and parents who came forward to report this threat as they found out about it,” Murphy said. “Our officers and members of the Bellingham School District worked together to quickly resolve this investigation last night and restore a sense of safety for the school staff, students, and parents for Friday’s school day.”
Chryst informed families of the threat in an email at 7:48 p.m. Thursday, saying that the student in question would be staying home until they were “certain all students will be safe.”
At 8:35 a.m. on Friday, Chryst informed families that the student would not be on campus and that there would be extra staff at Shuksan to “ensure all students feel comfortable and safe.”
“Student safety is important to us, and we appreciate the students and others who came forward to share the information they saw on social media,” Chryst wrote in the Friday morning email. “I am very thankful for our community and partnership with Bellingham Police Department.”
More than a dozen schools in Seattle were placed on “shelter-in-place” and modified lockdown status in mid-September after an unidentified person made threats against them on social media, according to the Seattle Times. Schools in Pierce County were also targeted with threatening, but not credible, social media posts as well.
Across the nation, schools from New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas and Utah have also had a surge in school safety threats from posts on social media. In some instances, arrests have been made.
