Thursday, September 26, 2024
Gatesville Independent School District alerted parents on Monday night that it will increase security at all of its campuses on Tuesday after receiving a notice about a social media threat that targeted schools across the country.
The school district’s statement said the threat was deemed not credible and “likely generated by a bot.” Superintendent Dr. Barrett Pollard said the Gatesville Police Department first received the threat before notifying Gatesville ISD.
“Given the times we live in, we have to take all of these comments seriously no matter how abstract or vague,” Pollard said. “I believe the threat was for Monday, but we did not find out about it until Monday evening. However, we did ask for additional law enforcement for Tuesday. These messages are basically a form of terrorism because they create fear and hysteria.”
Pollard said Gatesville ISD did not directly receive the threat.
“I did not see the actual message this time, but the Gatesville Police Department apparently saw something and reported it to us,” Pollard said.
Meridian ISD received a similar warning by local law enforcement on Monday, according to the school’s Facebook page. The school also increased its security following the notice.
“There is no credible evidence to suggest that this is a legitimate threat toward MISD or any other school in the nation,” Meridian ISD said in the post.
Gatesville ISD’s actions come after a rise in online threats targeting school districts in Texas and other states this week, with some leading to arrests.
East Texas police arrested a juvenile accused of making online threats against a school in Longview, CBS 19 reported on Monday. A similar situation occurred at an Austin high school on Sunday where a student faces charges for making threats via Snapchat, according to KXAN.
In Atlanta, police arrested multiple students for making hoax threats following a school shooting that killed four people at a high school in Winder, Georgia on Sept. 4, according to FOX 5 Atlanta.
CBS news reported that authorities arrested a 14-year-old student on Saturday in Broward County, Florida over online threats that targeted several schools in the area. According to the article, the threats were “intended to be a joke.”
This is not the first time Gatesville ISD has been warned of allegedly fake threats, Pollard notes. In December, several Central Texas schools received a threat that originated from a “known bot.”
