Dealing with threats in school: Eastside incidents end in two arrests
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Police arrested two middle-school students in Bellevue and Woodinville last week in two separate incidents involving a bomb threat against a school and a death threat against a classmate.
Both threats, coming just days after the fatal school shootings at Santee High School near San Diego, reflect a renewed awareness among students, parents, school officials and police of the need to take threats and even rumors of threats seriously.
"We're going to take every comment seriously, no matter how off-handed," said Bellevue police spokeswoman Marcia Harndon.
The first incident occurred at Tillicum Middle School in Bellevue, when a seventh-grader allegedly told a classmate that he was going to bomb the school.
According to police, the boy said, "I'm going to go home and make little bombs and blow everybody up. I hate this school."
The classmate told a parent, who told a teacher, who told the assistant principal. The boy was arrested around midnight at his home. Nothing was discovered there that indicated he could make a bomb, Harnden said.
The second incident occurred at Timbercrest Junior High in Woodinville, when an eighth-grade special-education student told a classmate, "You're a dead man walking, I'm going to kill you," according to principal Larry Little.
The student had assaulted the classmate the week before and then bragged that he had access to weapons, Little said. Based on that information, the boy was arrested Thursday by King County sheriff's deputies.
Charges have not been filed in either case, pending a decision by King County prosecutors. Meanwhile, both boys have been expelled from school.
Police and Tillicum school officials met with two dozen parents yesterday to alleviate anxieties and answer questions. Authorities said they walk a fine line when it comes to threats and rumors, especially among children so young.
All threats are taken seriously, said Bellevue police Lt. Tom Falkenborg of the Bellevue Police Department's school-services unit, even though many are spoken in jest, anger or frustration.
"You have to be careful and concerned, but not paranoid," concluded Nancy Davis, mother of a Tillicum seventh-grader. "But it's not hopeless. There's a lot more that children are dealing with, but our job is to make it not so scary, to help our kids make it a better world."
Little, the Timbercrest principal, said schoolground vernacular has become much more violent.
"Rather than using skills of talking out issues or conversing with peers, their first impulse is violence," Little said. "I see more and more kids, to solve their problems, thinking about hitting somebody or thinking about killing somebody."
Police arrested the Tillicum student because "there was a clear indication that he was trying to scare and intimidate," Harnden said.
The boy had also made a physical threat against a classmate two days before the bomb threat, she said.
Officials at both schools - echoed by parents and police - stressed "proactive" solutions and preventive measures to avoid disasters, including peer programs, anonymous tip lines and emergency evacuation drills. They encouraged students to come forward and report comments and threats, no matter the context.
"I question every day what is it we can do to make school a better place," said Shauna Reed, assistant principal at Tillicum. "Why is this happening? And we try to resolve it, every day."
Said Falkenborg: "We do the best we can. We talk to the kids, we get the parents involved, and then we keep our fingers crossed."
Michael Ko can be reached at 206-515-5653 or mko@seattletimes.com.