EDITORIAL: Police, schools respond properly

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Local police and school officials faced a frightening situation last week. They handled it swiftly and well.

Although threats of school shootings tend to proliferate right after an actual tragedy, officials obviously need to assume that a threat presents a potential danger to students and staff, and act accordingly.

Baker City’s episode started only one day after 19 students and two teachers were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.

On the afternoon of May 25, around the time classes let out in Baker City schools, Lance Woodward, the Baker City Police Department’s school resource officer, learned from staff at Baker High School that a teacher had overheard a student talking about a threat that another student had allegedly made, a threat that referenced the Uvalde shooting. The second student, a male, had been recently expelled from BHS, Police Chief Ty Duby said.

This might seem to be a situation when canceling classes for the following day, or instituting a lockout, was warranted. But Duby said he decided instead to interview the expelled student, at his home, before school started on May 26. Duby also assigned unmarked police cars to park near the student’s home early that morning, to ensure he didn’t leave unnoticed.

Duby’s decision was sensible. It ensured that police would know where the student was. And because he was the only potential threat police knew about at the time, there was no reason to frighten students and staff or interfere with classes.

Duby said the student denied to police that he had made the alleged threat. Police also talked to the student’s parents. After the conversations, Duby said he was convinced the threat, if the student made it, was not serious.

But the situation changed later on May 26. Woodward learned about social media posts from Baker Middle School students that referred to a threat about a school shooting. At first it appeared these threats were not related to the expelled BHS student, Duby said.

Based on evidence of a possible second threat, Mark Witty, superintendent of the Baker School District, decided around noon on May 26 to institute a lockout in all district schools. This, too, was a reasonable decision.

A lockout is a precaution in which all exterior doors are locked, and students and staff remain inside, with classes continuing. Moreover, a police officer was stationed outside the entrance to each school. A lockout is quite different from a lockdown, the protocol for cases when there is an active shooter or other direct threat. During a lockdown, students are told to be quiet and hide, and all interior doors are locked, and lights turned off.

The May 26 lockout ended after about an hour, after police determined that the social media posts from BMS referred not to a separate threat, but to the alleged threat by the BHS student.

But that wasn’t the last of the day’s challenges for police.

Late in the afternoon, after most students had gone home, Woodward learned of yet another threat. This one was actually unrelated to the alleged threat by the expelled BHS student. In the later case, a 12-year-old boy attending BMS made a threat about a shooting at the middle school. Police talked to the student at school and, later, at his home. Police cited the student for first-degree disorderly conduct, a Class A misdemeanor.

The expelled BHS student, meanwhile, has not been charged, Duby said. He said police haven’t been able to confirm the student made a threat, in part because the teacher who overheard the second-hand conversation couldn’t identify the student who supposedly heard the expelled student make the threat.

Students certainly ought to be punished when police can confirm that they made statements, serious or not, that frighten students, staff and parents, and interfere with school.

Regardless, it’s gratifying to see how quickly, and decisively, police and school officials responded on May 26.

Police also should continue to keep track of the expelled student, who has a possible reason to resent the high school and allegedly has threatened a shooting.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor