Just before lunch on the morning of March 10, members of the WW-P school community began receiving a series of Twitter and Nixle messages relating to a situation unfolding at High School South: “Due to a social media concern the students were evacuated. Our officers and K9 are on scene.”
“HS South Evacuated for a possible concern. Officers on scene. No issue at this time.”
“As a precaution. A fleet of K9 vehicles have arrived to check the school from top to bottom. Every precaution is being taken.”
“A suspect is being questioned. A Fleet of K9 Dogs are checking HS South. All Kids & Staff are safe.”
Finally: “HS South all clear. Students are returning. All officers clearing. Investigation ongoing with confirmed suspect.”
What had happened? According to a press release issued by Lieutenant Matt Kemp of the West Windsor Police Department, an 18-year-old High School South student, Anthony Cordero, was placed in police custody after “alarming tweets” were discovered on his Twitter account, prompting an evacuation of the school while bomb-sniffing dogs swept through the hallways. No devices or suspicious substances were found. Cordero was charged with creating a false public alarm.
Police issued an all-clear, and students went back to class. But a question remained: what did the tweet say? Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in 1919 that you cannot falsely shout “fire” in a crowded theater, but where is the line between an obvious joke and possible threat drawn in the online world of social media?
When asked exactly what was tweeted, Sergeant Robert Fow of the West Windsor Police Detective Bureau said he could not get into specifics. “It was a threat and a bomb was mentioned in the threat,” Fow said.
“We take everything seriously. We can’t tell it’s a joke just by reading it,” says Fow. “Someone may be joking when they send it, and if it’s alarming in nature and when we start getting phone calls that people are seeing this and it’s scaring them, that’s when we start the investigation. Kids need to learn that what they think is a joke may have consequences.”
The school declined to comment. According to police, the student had posted the threatening messages Tuesday morning. Other students told school administrators, who called police. The high school was evacuated for about an hour while a dozen K-9 units searched the school, Kemp said, noting that Cordero had posted generalized messages about bombings, none of which referenced the school itself.
Students and staff were evacuated at approximately 11 a.m., and police arrived with “a fleet of K-9 units” to search the school around 11:30 a.m. Students and staff were allowed back inside the school around 12:30 p.m.
Superintendent of Schools David Aderhold gave more information at the Board of Education meeting, coincidently held on the night of March 10. “District personnel have learned from past incidents that effective communication is important in situations like this, and we strived to keep everyone informed via social media while the events were unfolding at HSS. But of course the safety of our students and staff is our first priority. And I am pleased to say that the students and staff were evacuated in an organized and timely manner.”
“When we drill, we don’t tell people that it’s a drill, because we want everyone to take them seriously,” Aderhold continued. “Because of that, when we do have a perceived emergency, students and staff react appropriately and do what they need to do to ensure everyone’s safety. The police responded very quickly and searched the entire building, along with bomb-sniffing dogs. It just so happened that there were 15 canine police units from the region attending training in Freehold that day, and so they all came to help secure the school, which aided us greatly in ensuring that the building was safe.”
Everyone was back inside the building within 45 minutes, he said.
Parents and students praised the handling of the situation by the school district and police.
“I was pleased by the level of communication from the district about the event. I was even more impressed with the orderly manner in which the staff and students cleared the building, and also how quickly and efficiently the police responded. This event has reassured me that in the event of a true emergency, our children will be safe,” said South freshman parent Justine DiNardo Lim.
“From the minute there was an issue at HSS, my daughter texted me that she was OK. I was alerted via text messages from the district as to what was going on. Between those messages and the WW Police Department’s Facebook page, I felt very informed and confident that the situation was being handled properly,” said parent Kathy Lane.
Added her daughter, Kacy, a high school junior: “After hearing the announcement and being told by staff to evacuate, we followed the same type of protocol as in drills, but we all definitely felt the urgency of the situation. Once on the football field, I felt safe because we were all together and away from the building and knew the police were there to attend to the situation.”
However, one student, a sophomore at South, went to the girls’ bathroom right before the alarm was sounded, and couldn’t hear it from the bathroom. When she left the bathroom a couple of minutes later, the school was empty. “So I wandered around the school for a minute or so until the security guard saw me and told me to evacuate, and to RUN! which I did. By the time I got outside to the field, approximately five to six minutes had passed. I think they need to make sure that people in the bathrooms are notified in the event of an emergency.”
