Additional police will be patrolling Cherry Creek High School today after authorities say they found threatening messages that referred to the Columbine massacre.
References to April 20, the date of the Columbine massacre, and the words “Columbine will re-occur” were found written on bathroom walls, according to correspondence the principal sent to parents Thursday.
Principal Cathy Smith also warned students over the intercom system in recent days that anyone posing a threat in the school would be confronted by police.
“The principal wanted to assure (students) that if there was a threat inside the school, that we had police officers and others that would respond immediately,” said district spokeswoman Tustin Amole.
Paul Russ, the father of a Cherry Creek High student, said he feared for his child to be at school today and thought the school should be shut down because of the threats.
“My daughter has two tests that weren’t canceled, so she feels obligated to go to school,” Russ said. “I feel she’s in a double-bind – not given a choice of protecting herself against a possible threat versus having to go to school without an option to do otherwise.”
On Columbine’s anniversary and in the wake of the deadliest massacre in the nation’s history at Virginia Tech, schools across the Denver area have been on high alert.
Two students, who police say made threats at schools in Denver and Commerce City, were in custody Thursday.
At Kearney Middle School in Commerce City, a 13-year-old boy said in a classroom that he had a bomb, police said. The boy was taken into custody and told police where they could find a bomb, which turned out to be fake.Kearney was evacuated as a precaution.
On Tuesday, a student at Denver’s East High School was arrested after he made a “credible” threat against the school, police said Thursday.
Sonny Jackson, Police Department spokesman, declined to say what the teenager threatened to do or provide more information about the teen.
More than two-thirds of the students at Boulder High School stayed home Thursday, partly because of threats found scrawled around the school.
Two of the threats, found last month and earlier this month in men’s restrooms and on a desk, referenced Thursday specifically. “Everybody dies on April 19,” one of the threats read. The day was also declared by some students as senior skip day.
Police are also still trying to find out who threatened students on a list found at Wheat Ridge High School on Wednesday.
Although the school was not closed, hundreds of parents pulled their children out of class by noon Thursday.
