‘God Save Us All’: Stamford mother shocked, says son arrested during school threat hoax

STAMFORD, Texas ( KTAB/KRBC ) – Many parents with students in the Stamford ISD system chose not to send their children to school Thursday after the district notified them of a possible threat to the campus that was being investigated. While the threat was found to be not credible, District Superintendent Robbie Phillips says he understands those parents concerns and affirms their right to make the decision to keep them home.

“I wanted to be very transparent. We did our investigation. We worked with the police. So following that this morning, we have exhausted and explored all avenues and taken care of the situation, and there is not a threat.” Phillips told KTAB/KRBC.

Mother Karin Menzel is one such parent that kept her child at home, saying while she was assured the post was not credible, the doubt and uncertainty of the situation were too much to ignore. She says the rising national anxiety around school shootings has her concerned about not taking a threat seriously despite the threat’s credibility.

“I honestly think hoax or not, I’m just not chancing it, even if it were a hoax. Like imagine like there’s a 1 percent that it isn’t. . . I mean, it’s very vulnerable situation because, like I said, you never know when and if it’s going to happen. And us being a small town, we’re not immune to the threat. It can happen anywhere,” Menzel said.

THE THREATS AND CONFUSION

Phillips says the initial concern arose from a TikTok video that had been making its way through the student body and community. The post was a screenshot of a list of schools that included a few Stamford ISD campuses. Text on the screen stating “CHECK YOUR SCHOOL IF IT IS TARGETED ON THE LIST”, and the caption read, “the amount of schools targeted on this list is crazy, if your school is on there, I do hope you make it. I will always pray for y’all.” Many students took this to mean that the listed schools were “targeted” for some kind of violence.

“I got a screenshot. It named two schools – one here in town and one in Haskell. [It claimed] that they were targets for school shootings and at that point and time I took action,” said Phillips.

The Stamford Police Department was contacted and parents were notified, though Phillips said they quickly determined the post to be a misunderstanding.

“It’s been my understanding that this has been going on all over the state at different places. We did an extensive investigation to make sure that our kids and our staff were safe,” Phillips said.

The list of schools supposedly targeted for a shooting or some violent act, was actually an extensive list of schools targeted for academic intervention. While “Stamford High School” did appear on the list, the screenshot available does not specify Texas, and most if not all of the schools listed are located in the U.K. That video was removed for violating community guidelines, as the original poster mentioned in a following post. The video directly following the list stated “Y’all, the video I posted before this one, I found it on Google. . .I never wrote that! And it’s prob fake cause who would write schools that are being targeted?!”

Even so, Phillips says he and the district felt it important to take the threat seriously in the interest of student and staff safety.

“We have exhausted and explored all avenues and taken care of the situation, and there is not a threat. . . in the end we want what’s best for kids and we want them to be safe, and I want parents to feel at ease that Stamford ISD is doing everything it can possibly do to keep our kids safe,” said Phillips.

A separate video post relating to an incident in Haskell two weeks prior was also making the rounds. Some Stamford residents believing it was related to the supposed threat in their community.

KTAB/KRBC reached out to the Haskell Police Department for confirmation. The Chief of Police claims that a Knox City juvenile made a video threatening violence on specific students in the Haskell district. The department immediately contacted the state’s Criminal Investigation Department. CID obtained warrants and apprehended that Knox City juvenile, whom the Haskell chief says is currently held in the Taylor County Juvenile Detention Center.

ALLEGED ARREST

Measures taken by the Stamford Independent School District in connection to the list included parent notification, a police presence on campus Thursday, and staff interviewing students in relation to the post among others. One parent, Stamford mother of 3 Kathrine Harwood, told KTAB/KRBC that the middle school principal called her on Wednesday stating that a couple of students were being called in to talk about the video, and her son Coleton Bushart was among them.

“You know, kids share things on social media so quickly like wildfire that I just thought this video jumped around the hundreds of kids there trying to locate where it came from. At that point, I had I wanted to get my kids, but I knew I needed to call the principal back,” said Harwood.

She made her way to the elementary to pick up her youngest son before going to get Coleton at the middle school. It was then that she says the situation escallated.

‘It did progress rather quickly in the time it took me to drive from home to my youngest son school . . . the principal had called back and said and informed me that they had arrested my son for something he had posted, and that I needed to go get him at the police station,” Harwood said.

In a state of shock, she says she drove to the Stamford Police Station to inquire further about what had transpired with her son. Harwood said that upon arriving at the station, she spoke with the Chief of Police.

“Colton was somewhere in the back being held. I did not see him for a little bit, and I talked to the chief. I asked if I could please see the post. He showed it to me on his phone and I read it,” said Harwood.

Harwood provided KTAB/KRBC with the post she says the chief showed her as being the one posted by her son. That post, she says, was the only thing she was presented with as evidence against Coleton. That post reads, “Stamford elementary and middle school and Haskell High are on that list about targets for school shootings god save us all.”

“The shock continued because, setting aside the fact that I’m his mom, there’s no threatening content in that post from the way I read it. It even ends with a prayer request ‘god save us all’,” Harwood remarked.

At the station, she says she was able to see her son briefly before she was told he would be taken to a Juvenile detention center in Lubbock to await a hearing in Jones County.

“He’s traveling to and from Lubbock with someone I don’t know, driving to and from there, hopefully safely, to attend a court date to face some very scary and permanently damaging charges based on a post that I just don’t feel was threatening,” she said.

KTAB/KRBC asking Harwood what she was told the charges against her son were to which she replied “Terroristic threats. they said it was solely because of the post and the fear it instigated.”

Harwood says after contacting an attorney, she was able to negotiate moving his hearing up to Friday in the Jones County Court.

KTAB/KRBC reached out to the Stamford Police Department and Jones County Sheriff’s Department but has been unable to independently verify if Bushart was arrested or if any arrests took place in connection to the threat.

When asked for comment, Superintendent Phillips stated, “I can’t confirm any of that.”

These allegations and investigation are still developing. KTAB/KRBC will continue to follow the story and update as information becomes avalible.

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