One youth was arrested but no charges are being laid after a social media threat closed the doors of an Okotoks high school last week.
Around 8:11 a.m. on May 12 Okotoks RCMP received a call from Holy Trinity Academy principal Carmen Ostafichuk reporting a photo posted to social media by a student, which threatened an act of violence at the school. The nature of the threat has not been released.
“The RCMP were able to locate the individual who made the post quite quickly and arrest him at his house,” said RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Curtis Peters. “He never made it to school.”
As a precaution, HTA was closed for the day. Parents were notified and students were turned away. Those who were already at the school were placed in lockdown until their parents were able to pick them up, he said.
According to Christ the Redeemer Catholic Schools, any students on buses were rerouted to St. John Paul II Collegiate.
All students were been evacuated from HTA by 10 a.m. Police were still on-scene conducting interviews with teachers, students and staff, he said.
“We treat these things very seriously,” said Peters. “Safety of students is top priority for us, and of course for parents and teachers, so we take any threat that we receive very seriously and investigate them on a case-by-case basis.”
He said RCMP are not looking for any other individuals in relation to the case, and believe the situation has been resolved. Classes resumed on May 15.
Peters said social media threats are posing a new challenge for schools and police.
“It’s not exactly common, but unfortunately it seems to be more frequent, and we certainly don’t like it,” he said.
CTR Catholic superintendent Scott Morrison said there may have been other threats against schools over the division’s last 20 years, but never an Internet threat with so much urgency.
“This is probably the most alarming one we’ve had,” said Morrison. “We’re just really happy with the police co-operation and their quick action, and that they investigated and determined it wasn’t necessary to lay charges.”
When the report came in, Morrison met RCMP in the school parking lot, where the decision of whether to close the school and reroute buses needed to be made with just 10 minutes to spare. Buses were enroute to HTA at the time, he said.
“We did make that call with the co-operation of the RCMP – better safe than sorry,” he said. “I was super impressed with our transportation co-ordinator and Southland Transportation, because those buses got turned around and rerouted safely and calmly without a hitch in a very short period of time.”
The most intense moments came in the 15 to 20 minute window between the threat being posted to when RCMP made the arrest at the suspect’s home, he said. The school was under strict lockdown at the time.
“After that the temperature calmed down quite a bit and we could just kind of concentrate more on communication with our parents and our stakeholders,” said Morrison.
It was strange for school to be cancelled, he said. CTR Catholic has been known not to run its buses for a day due to inclement weather, but the school doors have never been closed, he said.
Even teachers were sent home once the school was given the all-clear, he said.
“I sent the teachers home at 10 a.m. too,” said Morrison. “I think after the stress of the moment was over they were pretty happy to have an early dismissal.”
While some students were shaken by the incident, others – like Christina Kautsil – felt it the situation was handled well.
She arrived at the school around 8:15 a.m. and was told at the front doors that the school was going into lockdown and to get into the nearest classroom, it happened to be the drama room. She waited there for her mom to arrive.
“It was pretty calm,” said Kautsil. “There were some people who were having a rough time with it, but the majority of it was just calm.”
