A threatening note found on a hallway floor at Southeast Middle School prompted adults to wave hand-held metal detectors over children and book bags this morning as students stood in line.
The brief, handwritten letter — found Friday afternoon after students had left — was titled “hit list,” Principal Dr. Ron Turbyfill said. It included a string of 12-15 names of students and staff members and mentioned a pistol.
The author is still unknown.
“We’re going to make sure the children entering the school are safe,” Turbyfill said. “We’re going to have as smooth of a day as possible.”
Friday, school employees immediately called everyone on the list to notify them. Sheriff’s deputies arrived about 5p.m. They used a magnetic wand to scan students at a dance at the school Friday night but found no weapons.
Sunday night, school staff met to discuss the threat.
The school used several wands at the front and side entrances this morning. It will continue to check students for the rest of the week, Hurt said.
Sheriff George Wilhelm also was at Southeast Middle this morning. He said investigators are studying the handwriting to try to identify the author.
“We’re investigating the possibility that it was more than a hoax,” he said. “We believe it to be a hoax, but we’re taking it seriously. The kids, they’re safer today than they probably will be all year.”
The event was a first since Southeast Middle opened on Oct. 11. But it’s one of many such threats in local schools since two shootings in southern California within the past three weeks, said Howard Hurt, associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Rowan-Salisbury Schools.
“Kids are mischievous and sometimes don’t realize what they’re doing,” Hurt said.
Two weeks ago, a local high school student was suspended after making a similar threat, Hurt said. He declined to provide further details. He said students at other local middle schools have made verbal threats and were suspended as well.
“It’s kind of interesting that most of the kids that do this are kind of disconnected from the mainstream school,” Hurt said. “They’re usually looking for attention.”
Extra security is the first step when any threat of violence is made in a school, Hurt said. But training teachers in crisis intervention can prevent such acts from multiplying. The school system has at least six employees to train teachers how to identify possible threats.
“Hopefully, we’ll have all of our teachers go through this,” he said.
Hurt also said all the attention Southeast Middle has received since Friday could encourage more students to make threats.
“This is the time we’re living in,” Hurt said. “We could have just ignored that (letter), but with the things that have happened, we couldn’t...
“If we catch who did this, they’re probably not going to be in any school for a while, and if they are, it’ll be in an alternate setting.”
The metal detectors didn’t comfort Lisa Thomas, who brought medicine to her seventh-grade son this morning.
Thomas stood outside the front entrance while adults waved the wands around children waiting to go to class. Many parents came in the front office to ask what was happening.
At Southeast, parents drop off children at the front entrance and buses use a side entrance. The school also had metal detectors at the side entrance this morning.
“I’m sort of worried about it,” Thomas said. “I thought of checking my son out. It’s got me scared.”
But seventh-grader Justin Boss wasn’t too worried.
“It’s just probably a stunt to keep everybody out of school,” he said. “I don’t think it’s that big a deal.”
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