By MIKE CAPUTO
School security and police heightened security measures on Thursday at W.T. Clarke High School in response to a threatening message discovered late last week in a boys' bathroom, district and police officials said.
Automated messages sent to families on Tuesday night informed parents about the threat, and said there would be locker sweeps and backpack checks on Thursday. Although school would remain open and the threatening message was labeled as "low credibility," Superintendent Leon Campo said the district offered students the option of not attending class on Thursday.
"We deal with each one of these threats, even those that are determined to be low credibility very seriously," Campo said. "We put into motion a number of precautionary measures in order to protect our children, in order to protect our staff, and that is our obligation."
According to Campo, the message implied that there would be a bomb at the high school on Thursday, Nov. 20. It was reported to police late last week, but the district decided to hold its announcement until the police investigation unfolded.
"We don't wait for precautions to the last day, but if we do preliminary announcing, what it does is kind of short circuits our investigation side of this," Campo said.
A suspect has not been apprehended yet, and the investigation is continuing, he said.
Read next week's print edition of the Herald for more on this story.
