SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Recent threats of harming students at schools in two northern Indiana counties illustrates the strain even pranks can create for police and school officials, authorities said.
South Bend police Lt. Eric Crittendon, who heads the school resource officer program for South Bend Community School Corp., said that since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and subsequent school shootings, authorities respond to school threats with an abundance of caution.
"I think Columbine was the big one that just really put people on total heightened alert regarding school safety," he told The South Bend Tribune. "Don't get me wrong; every school incident is noticed, but Columbine was really the turning point."
Earlier this month, Elkhart police reported an anonymous threat found in January in a bathroom stall at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles office in Elkhart said harm would be done 20 students at five unspecified schools in Elkhart and St. Joseph counties on April 15.
Although police downplayed that threat as "vague and unspecific" and area schools responded with beefed-up security, many parents kept their children home that day, which passed without incident.
Just 53 percent of students attended classes at South Bend public schools, while attendance was 61 percent for School City of Mishawaka and 68 percent at the Penn-Harris-Madison Schools. Attendance dropped to between 30 and 40 percent at Elkhart Community Schools.
Jefferson Intermediate Traditional School Principal Byron Sanders and a member of the South Bend public schools' safety committee said the threat caused alarm even though the district did its best to inform parents of its safety measures.
"That fear factor resulted in a high rate of absenteeism," he said. "It cost ... a day of education in the end."
Sgt. Bill Redman, a certified school resource officer and spokesman for the St. Joseph County Police Department, said the incident showed how authorities must take even pranks seriously.
"This most recent one, we had no credibility to the threat, so it was a little disheartening that we had to respond the way we did," he said. "It's disheartening, the fact that we have to go through this, but we will, and we always have, take every threat seriously."
Although police do not know for sure that the recent threat was made by a student, Crittendon said he's seen a clear pattern of threats that suggest their goal is to give students an extended weekend.
"One tends to think they come at a convenient time, in that they tack on another day to the weekend," he said. "I can tell you it's always a Monday or a Friday."
Jim Frabutt, a fellow in the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Educational Initiatives, said parents should be mindful that some threats don't warrant a strong response from schools and police.
"Just saying there was a threat sounds so off-putting and scary to some people," Frabutt said. "Not every threat is created equal; not every threat should be treated equally seriously."
