THURSTON — Students at Thurston High are safe after a “perceived threat” against the school forced a lockdown on Oct. 25.
According to the Springfield Police Department (SPD), a mental health assistance hotline notified them about a “specific, reportedly active threat” to Thurston High, sending the school into lockdown and police and school administrators into full investigation mode into what is now believed to be linked to other threats made to schools across the country.
“This information leads SPD to believe the threat was less credible,” said George Crolly, SPD Lieutenant, in a news release.
“Similar incidents happened last year at several Eugene high schools and our federal partners were tracking multiple threats that were nearly identical the same day as the Thurston threat,” said Zakary Gosa-Lewis, public information coordinator for Springfield Police Department. “As far as the nationwide concern, these sorts of threats are unfortunately trending upwards across the country.”
Thurston High went into lockdown about 10:35 a.m. while SPD worked to verify whether the threat was credible, Crolly said. Thurston Elementary, Thurston Middle, and Ridgeview Elementary schools were placed on “lockout,” meaning no one was allowed to enter or exit the building.
Springfield Public Schools is responsible for deciding what level to put a school under in the presence of a threat. According to Brian Richardson, director of communications and community engagement at Springfield Public Schools, the district and SPF took an “abundantly cautious approach” when deciding to lock out the elementary and middle schools.
“Whenever we get the threats that do come into the schools, we want to take them all seriously. Each one is a little bit different, so the response can be different just depending on a particular threat,” Richardson said.
He added that this incident was considered a “perceived threat.” SPD remained on campus until the students were dismissed.
According to the police report, SPD worked with the schools to initiate a controlled release of students at the normal release time. This was already an early release day for the district, and students were to be released at 12:40 p.m. after the threat was squashed.
SPD and the FBI are investigating a threat received through an online platform. Gosa-Lewis declined to identify the threat.
Richardson and Gosa-Lewis applauded the families and the community for keeping calm.
“We had a lot of people who did the right thing and didn’t rush to campus and flood campus or jam up cell phone towers and those types of things,” Richardson said.
He also said that there are resource officers from SPD stations at both Springfield high schools and that the district has recently implemented a link on its website that anyone can use to report bullying, harassment, threats of violence, or feeling unsafe. This link is available on any webpage under Springfield Public Schools.
“We always appreciate when people share threats with us, and we’re going to take all of the threats seriously because we need our buildings to be a safe place that students can learn, and we’re going to do whatever we need to to ensure that that comes to fruition,” Richardson said.
