More police at Bend High after alleged threat of violence

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Parents of Bend High School students were informed Monday night of a possible threat of violence at the school Tuesday.

In an email to parents, the school’s administrators said a student had reported “overhearing two other students talking about general school attacks in ways that were perceived to be threatening to the Bend Senior High School learning environment.” Bend Police and school administrators worked over the weekend to follow up on the information but did not find a viable lead.

The students said to have discussed school attacks were not identified. Police and school administrators are continuing to investigate.

According to the email, there will be an increased police presence at Bend High School on Tuesday, the day the reporting student said the two other students were allegedly discussing violence that could take place at the school.

The email suggested the alleged threat could be a “teachable moment” about the appropriate tone for discussing “the tragedies that we are too frequently seeing on our mobile devices, on social media and on television.”

A Parkland, Florida, high school was the scene of a mass shooting Wednesday that has mobilized high school students across the nation into pushing for gun control. The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, 19, killed 17 people. He was apprehended by police.

The next day, 400 students at Bend’s Summit High School stayed home from school after an unspecified threat of violence appeared on a bathroom wall two days earlier. Extra police were at the school throughout the day.

On Friday, a student at High Desert Middle School in Bend made verbal threats of gun violence at the school, according to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office. Other students reported the alleged threat and a search of the school grounds found that although the student implied he had a gun, he did not. The student was disciplined by school administration, and sheriff’s office investigators cited him with charges of disorderly conduct and harassment.

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