A threat of a massacre that would top the body count during the Virginia Tech University shootings that was posted on a blog caused such concern that officials took the unusual step of shutting down Westminster High School on April 21.
Buses filled with students were turned away, doors were locked and pupils arriving for their first period were told to return home while police searched the building.
No evidence of an impending attack was discovered in the building.
Although the case was investigated by local police and the FBI, the person who posted the threats on an Internet message board — discovered by someone in Cambridge, England, and e-mailed to the school — has not been identified.
The incident shows how seriously school threats are taken these days — and that they can come from anywhere.
“We live in different times these days,” said Roberta Selleck, superintendent of Westminster 50. “When we get information — especially like that e-mail — it causes us to pay close attention.”
After the 1999 Columbine High School attack that left 15 dead and many more wounded, a Colorado nonprofit group set up a website and a phone line to allow students to anonymously report any threatening behaviors or activities.
As of May 2010, the Safe2Tell organization had received nearly 8,000 calls, resulting in almost 2,500 investigations, early-interventions and preventions.
Rarely do the reports result in the closure of a school.
But April 20 — the anniversary of the Columbine attack — Alan Douglas from England was looking at an Internet blog that contained messages from someone who said he was going to complete a massacre at Westminster High that would “beat all other school shootings,” according to the Westminster police report.
Entries were posted and then immediately deleted.
One entry said that Seung-Hui Cho, the attacker in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre who killed 32 people and wounded 25 others, didn’t know what he was doing.
Douglas copied the entries and e-mailed officials in Westminster.
Principal Patrick Sanchez got the message about 1 a.m. He immediately called police and met with investigators about three hours later at the school.
Police believed the threat was more bomb-related and sent bomb-sniffing dogs into the school. But the search couldn’t be completed before doors were set to open.
“That’s when we sent everyone home,” Sanchez said. “You need to trust your instincts.”
The district in August will open a new Westminster High School — a 365,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility with some of the most up-to-date security features.
“This will be the gold standard for Colorado,” Selleck said. “It is the most safe and secure building. We have dozens of monitors and cameras outside and inside the building. We have a command center built into the facility. We have the opportunity to close the school down in a moment’s notice.”
Westminster made the right call to shut down the school and send the students home, said John-Michael Keyes, whose daughter Emily was killed in 2006 when a gunman stormed into Platte Canyon High School and took students hostage.
Keyes has created the “I Love U Guys Foundation” that has developed a standard response protocol for schools to use when unforeseen incidents occur.
“Over 80 percent of school violence is broadcast ahead of time,” Keyes said. “People know. Giving kids the safety to tell about it, that is a huge prevention measure.”
Jefferson and Adams counties have developed some of the best school-safety systems in the country, Keyes said, adding that he wishes more counties and school districts would follow their lead.
“I’ve seen so many other schools and districts who say, ‘it can’t happen here,’ ” he said. “But you see it on the news every day.”
At a recent conference on school safety and violence prevention at Adams City High School, put on by the Adams County Youth Initiative, the message was that community groups must work together to combat student violence.
Creating a safe school means more than merely stopping the prospect of gun violence, said Kevin Jennings,U.S. assistant deputy education secretary, the keynote speaker.
Research by the U.S. Department of Education shows school violence has declined 4 percentage points over the past several years, but the incidence of behaviors such as bullying has increased by 5 percentage points.
“I know the history of Colorado, and I know how important it is to keep guns out of school,” Jennings said. “But that’s a pretty low standard. What most kids worry about is not the horrific events that make the evening news. It is the daily uncivil behavior, the bullying, social exclusion.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
Make the right call
Want to report a school threat?
Visit and report online, or call 877-532-7233.
