Copycat threat in my kids' school district

[LuvOrlando]

Oh my goodness. Today we got a cryptic message from the school district about an employee being arrested, on site counseling for staff & students and police being available tomorrow at one of the local schools, thankfully not my kids' school but close enough to be scary. The message was weird, upsetting but it didn't say too much. Then this showed up which shed more light

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-bethlehem-kelley-facebook-threat-20110117,0,4601334.story

They are falling like dominoes

 

[Jennasis]

What was the threat? All I could find in that article was this:

What if I did lose it. What if I came into the School with a gun. I could have … I have all the keys. I can get in any door…anywhere,

Seems odd to arrest the guy for that.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Supposedly his threats spilled over from surmising the damage he could do at the school into damage he can do at a local airport. At the moment my info is a mix of the news and parent reports of people who saw what this local guy wrote

here:
www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/index.ssf/2011/01/bethlehem_area_school_district_42.html

Admittedly, our local Morning Call paper is a bit on the sketchy side compared to what I grew up with having The NY Times, Daily News & NY Post covering every blip on the radar. I miss that sort of journalism.

 

[rie'smom]

What was the threat? All I could find in that article was this:



Seems odd to arrest the guy for that.

The thing is if they did nothing and the guy started shooting at either the school or the airport, they'd be called irresponsible for not acting on the information they had.

 

[Jennasis]

The thing is if they did nothing and the guy started shooting at either the school or the airport, they'd be called irresponsible for not acting on the information they had.

It IS a catch 22. Thus begins the slippery slope (not saying this guy shouldnt be investigated). Can we expect that soon you could be arrested for exclaiming "I'll KILL you."?

Food for thought. Hopefully they prevented another tragedy, but I wonder where this new road will lead us.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Ummm, good point but I don't think this particular person's rantings are the same as a one time "I'll kill you!" exaggeration, on the contrary, this seems to be an ongoing trend. It doesn't say so but I think its a safe bet that this guys co-workers were interviewed before the arrest. Also, I don't generally assume the Police to be a bunch of bumbling Cops so I'm going to assume they did a bit of research first. Another thing, its not like all this guys co-workers & friends are lining up in his defense, which I would expect if this was an over-reaction. More so would be the students standing up. But, all of that is absent, at least at the moment. For me, sometimes what is missing is as important as what is there.

 

[JOCAmom]

I'm from the same area and I read about this yesterday. Unless you don't read our local news daily, I can't see how the telephone message from the school district could be cryptic. And I know there are plenty of people who don't read the news daily. My brother and SIL are like that.

As for this being a copycat threat in regards to the tragedy in AZ, who knows. This isn't the first time something like has made the news here. Maybe it's a copycat of this local man who made facebook threats back in December.

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-facebook-threats-dorney-school-sho20110112,0,6225975.story

 

[Jennasis]

Ummm, good point but I don't think this particular person's rantings are the same as a one time "I'll kill you!" exaggeration, on the contrary, this seems to be an ongoing trend. It doesn't say so but I think its a safe bet that this guys co-workers were interviewed before the arrest. Also, I don't generally assume the Police to be a bunch of bumbling Cops so I'm going to assume they did a bit of research first. Another thing, its not like all this guys co-workers & friends are lining up in his defense, which I would expect if this was an over-reaction. More so would be the students standing up. But, all of that is absent, at least at the moment. For me, sometimes what is missing is as important as what is there.

Perhaps you missed where I said I WASN'T saying this guy shouldn't be investigated. I'm glad they seem to have found the ticking time bomb and defused it before another tragedy occurred.

What I am saying is I wonder what this means for the future. If he was arrested simply for being a possible whack-o, or if he was arrested for speaking his thoughts, or if they found actual plans/intention of harm on his part?...just a slippery slope leading to who knows what.

KWIM?

 

[LuvOrlando]

JOCAmom, I don't read it daily and I was stuck in the house with all my kids' friend yesterday so no adult conversations so for me this was a surprise. I use the word cryptic defined as: "marked by an often perplexing brevity." Did you hear the "BASD 911" message, that's how it came over my cell? It was scary but revealed almost nothing.

Jennasis, I guess I misunderstood. It is a slippery slope, on that I agree with you. But, there seems to be more to this person's story than just a single rant so I don't know that this is in the realm of witch-hunt status. It could be, you may be onto something, but the report seems to allude to more, at least that's the parent buzz. I wonder if kids had reported erratic behavior? Co-workers?

 

[rie'smom]

It IS a catch 22. Thus begins the slippery slope (not saying this guy shouldnt be investigated). Can we expect that soon you could be arrested for exclaiming "I'll KILL you."?

Food for thought. Hopefully they prevented another tragedy, but I wonder where this new road will lead us.

It's one of those "the greater good" things. I agree it sucks to have to live with this slippery slope but unfortunately, it's the way it is and I can foresee it getting worse.

 

[JOCAmom]

OP, I heard the message too. My nephew goes to school in that district so my SIL played it for me. But I'm a news junkie. I read the news headlines multiple times a day so to me it wasn't cryptic.

 

[horseshowmom]

The thing is if they did nothing and the guy started shooting at either the school or the airport, they'd be called irresponsible for not acting on the information they had.

It's one of those "the greater good" things. I agree it sucks to have to live with this slippery slope but unfortunately, it's the way it is and I can foresee it getting worse.

I agree completely. Two or three years ago, my daughter had an ex-boyfriend who didn't like being an ex. After 18 months (of not seeing each other at all - except he apparently had been watching her at least in that recent timeframe), he contacted her with some FB pm's that scared her. His Myspace page was literally full of songs that were really out there (for example, one talked about raping the girl and "busting a cap" in the guy that she was with now, one talked about how it was the girl's fault that she had pushed him into what he was going to do next, lots and lots of other warped stuff). The policeman I showed it to didn't like it too much either. He contacted the guy and warned him to stay away from DD or the next contact wouldn't be so cordial. Thankfully, that did it.

As a parent or member of that community, I would have been VERY concerned about this guy's writings on FB. Even if he's not dangerous, I sure wouldn't want him around school kids because I would have to question his judgement for sure.