School officials remain sensitive to violent threats, continue prioritizing student safety

Concerns about potential violence have made school administrators and the public “hypersensitive,” and a string of threats made recently against campuses is reminding educators of the need to keep student safety a top priority, according to Merced Union High School District officials.

About 1,100 public and charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District were closed Tuesday because of a threat emailed to an administrator. A similar threat also was sent to New York City school officials, but authorities there did not consider it credible. The threats against the Los Angeles and New York schools warned that campuses would be attacked with pressure cooker bombs, nerve agents and machine guns.

In recent weeks, two schools in the Merced Union High School District have been shut down by threats of violence.

In late October, classes at Livingston High School were canceled when a school employee found a voice message threatening to bomb or “shoot up” the campus. Administrators recognized the student’s voice and police arrested a 16-year-old girl, who later confessed to making the threat, according to Ralph Calderon, the high school district’s assistant superintendent for human resources.

A threat made Dec. 3 at El Capitan High School in Merced has been harder to trace. The emailed warning also caused classes to be canceled just as students were arriving at the campus.

Merced police Lt. Andre Matthews said Tuesday that whoever made the threat used technology that masks the unique address of the computer used to send the message. Police traced it to servers in Germany and Amsterdam. Matthews said the threat was sent through the school website’s contact form, which does not require a valid email address.

“Whoever sent it had a little more knowledge than the average person,” Matthews said.

The person who threatened the Los Angeles district also used an “anonymizer” to mask its origin by routing the message through a proxy server. The email was routed through a German IP address on its way to the school board member’s email box, The Associated Press reported.

The two Merced County threats have been the only ones to schools in the high school district this year, Calderon said. In the past, he noted there didn’t seem to be a pattern or trend to the threats. They appear to occur for “no rhyme or reason,” he said.

When violent threats are made, school officials always contact police, Calderon said. The “credibility” of a threat is determined by police, he said.

“If we do have safety plans in place and protocols, it doesn’t help if we’re relaxed in our vigilance,” Calderon said. “We don’t know when, or if, any of these things are going to occur. We’re in a permanent state of ‘Code Yellow.’ That’s the way we need to operate.”

“We do recognize we live in different times,” Calderon said. “More than anything, we’re hypersensitive. Authorities are going to act in an overabundance of caution, and so are we. Our No. 1 goal is to make sure the kids are safe.”

When El Capitan received the threat, Sheriff Vern Warnke acknowledged “heightened awareness,” but said all threats are taken seriously.

After student safety, Calderon said the No. 2 priority for schools during these situations is communication with parents. The district uses a dialer system to send automated messages to parents.

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 6:27 PM with the headline "School officials remain sensitive to violent threats, continue prioritizing student safety."