BASSETT, Neb.-
A rookie sheriff’s deputy was arrested in connection with a school shooting threat that led to public school lockdowns in three counties earlier this week, officials said Friday.
The Nebraska State Patrol said Ivan D. Young, 41, of Beatrice, was being held in the Rock County Jail. Patrol spokeswoman Deb Collins did not say what led to Young’s arrest but said he had worked as a deputy in Holt County since August.
“No matter whether you are a cop, a gas station attendant or anyone, you have to be responsible for your actions,” Holt County Sheriff Bruce Theye said. “And he will be.”
Schools across the country have been highly sensitive to threats after three deadly school shootings in the span of a week in Colorado, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The schools in Nebraska’s Brown, Rock and Holt counties, a rural area covering some 5,000 square miles, were locked down Wednesday when a local newspaper received an anonymous call from a man who said there would be a shooting at one of the schools. The Holt County schools were under lockdown Thursday as well.
In northern Vermont, students and staff at a high school were kept after school for more than two hours Friday after a man wearing camouflage and carrying a gun was spotted nearby, authorities said.
Vermont State Police Sgt. John Flannigan said the lockdown was “precautionary in nature.” He said the person may have been a hunter, but authorities had not yet contacted the man.
In Northern Virginia, classes were canceled for the entire Culpeper County School District on Thursday after a bomb threat was called in to that county. Fifteen schools were searched, but police and 20 bomb-sniffing dogs found no evidence of explosives and the district reopened Friday.
Culpeper Sheriff H. Lee Hart said the caller has not been identified, but added, “we do have leads we are exploring.”
In Eastport, Maine, a high school’s crisis preparedness drill became real Thursday when officials learned a man with a gun was spotted heading into nearby woods near an elementary school.
Officer Chris Gardner said the weapon looked like a high-powered rifle but turned out to be a pellet gun, and that the man carrying it said he was shooting target practice. Police took the weapon but did not charge him.
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