Police continue to investigate false threat made to Calera High School

CALERA, Ala. ( WIAT ) — A false threat to shoot up Calera High School at noon caused major disruptions on Friday. Parents waited in a long line of cars to pick up their kids after hearing the news.

“It’s just a sad day in general that people have to go this extreme and send out false texts and shake the people up,” Dallas Moss, a student’s father, said.

According to Shelby County Schools spokesperson Cindy Warner, Calera City Schools went into lockdown briefly Friday morning and parents were notified that they could pick up their students from the high school.

Police Chief David Hyche said one of his detectives contacted him after school resource officers learned of the threat. It appears to be a screenshot of a 2018 threat that someone had reposted. The individual responsible for the original threat was arrested and charged.

“It’s a crime and we’re going to investigate it. We’re going to follow up on every lead and if we find out who did it, they’ll be prosecuted,” said Hyche.

While investigating the initial threat, officers received word about a bomb threat so they brought in a K-9 and searched the school. That threat also proved to be false.

Despite these findings, Hyche said additional officers were kept at the school out of an abundance of caution, utilizing many resources. The Alabama Highway Patrol also offered assistance to the Calera Police Department.

Hyche said he’s already spoken with the district attorney’s office about pursuing a possible felony charge.

“One thing that we would like to just encourage is that parents really talk to students about the dangers of these false threats,” Warner said. “We don’t want students to not report when they feel scared or have heard something, but to report it to law enforcement or to us directly.”

Mac Hardy with the National Association of School Resource Officers offered this advice when asked how parents should discuss school threats with their children.

“Let them know — once you hit send, it’s gone, there’s no bring it back,” Hardy said.” “Tell them how important it is and how important that safe environment inside of our school is and how they can play a part in keeping that environment safe.”

He said it’s also important to know what your kids are doing online.

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