At a meeting for parents held at Community Middle School on Monday, January 29, police played a recording of a 911 call made on Friday, January 12, that caused the school to go into lockdown. ##M:[more]##“I’m going to commit suicide,” said a voice, which police cannot yet identify as a male or a female. “I’ve got a gun, I’m going to put it to my throat. I have a loaded shotgun.”
The caller, who police believe was on a schoolbus headed to the school when the call was made, said he or she would commit the act at Community Middle School. The 911 operator asked the caller’s name, and the call ended. Police were not able to trace the call, which lasted 53 seconds. At one point, they thought they had pinpointed the area from which the call was made, but later determined the mobile phone company’s information was not accurate enough to determine anything with certainty.
Plainsboro police arrived at Community Middle School, where classes had not yet begun, and re-routed all buses to High School North, located directly across Grover’s Mill Road. Students were interviewed and their backpacks were searched. The call was determined to be a hoax.
Some 200 parents attended the meeting, which was announced last week. Jay Duffy, George Cier, and Tom DeSimone of the Plainsboro Police Department led the discussion, with input from CMS principal Arthur Downs, assistant principal Donna Gibbs-Nini, and Assistant Superintendent Tom Smith.
The meeting was called by the police department to inform parents about school and police procedures in response to threats and crisis. According to some, fear and anger had become prevalent amongst parents and students, particularly because this was the second major hoax perpetrated against the school since November. Additionally, there have been two other incidents, which police characterized as “minor,” but which caused the school to be evacuated given the previous occurrences.
“It’s important to remember that just because there were two hoaxes, that doesn’t increase the likelihood of an actual threat in the school,” said Sergeant Duffy. “The school is the safest place your children can be because we can control what happens here.”
Police said the tape is being played for faculty, who they hope will be able to identify the responsibly parties. They said they believe there are two voices on the tape. The tape is not being played for students at this time due to its disturbing nature. They asked all children in attendance to leave the room before it was played.
Police urged parents not to attempt to pick their children up from the schools should another lockdown occur. “We have a plan, and if something were to happen, we want to do all we can to ensure the safety of all the children. When parents arrive on the scene wanting to take their children, it takes time and manpower away from us dealing with the situation at hand,” said DeSimone.
Police and school officials also urged parents to enforce rules against their students using cell phones in school, especially during times of crisis. Gibbs-Nini said students should never have phones turned on anywhere during school, and Duffy said use of phones during lockdown or evacuation could not only increase panic surrounding the incident, but also could increase danger. “Some explosives detonated by remote control could be set off by cell phones being used. At that point, any information your children are giving you is incomplete at best. They should not be using cell phones in those times,” says Duffy.
Police discussed penalties enforced against the two students found to be responsible for the incident in October. Two 14-year-old females wrote terroristic threats on the wall of a bathroom in the school including a warning that a bomb would detonate in the school that day. The threats included names of teachers and students.
Those students, who attended North, pleaded guilty to a third-degree charge of falsely causing public alarm. They were expelled and were sentenced to 10 days each in a Middlesex County juvenile detention center. They were each forced to pay $2,”000 restitution, and given 200 hours of community service despite the fact that neither had prior convictions or police records. DeSimone said he had heard that one of the students had bragged about being sent to juvenile hall, and had treated the experience as “a badge of honor.” Police said they will seek harsher penalties for those responsible for the 911 call.
One parent who identified herself only as a physician said: “We need to counsel these children. I see teens all the time who try to commit suicide at 18 or 19, and sometimes they succeed. Many of them say their first attempt was at 14. What’s on that tape scares me, and we need to talk to students about these problems.”
Some parents offered suggestions for how the school might prevent similar situations in the future. One man who did not identify himself said parents could volunteer to monitor the school after hours.
Other parents were angry. “I’m mad as hell, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it,” said another unidentified male. “My child called me and said, come pick me up, and when I got there no one could tell me where my child was.”
Duffy explained that the school has approximately 1,”200 students and, police and school officials could not take time during the investigation to help parents, who were not instructed to retrieve their children, who had been instructed not to place phone calls.
