Education Looking at Consistent Response to Behavioral Issues After Bomb Threat Prank

A bomb threat phoned in as a prank cost students at Lockhart Elementary School nearly a full day of instructional time and the V.I. Police Department critical manpower hours as officials amassed a cadre of local and federal resources to investigate.

“It’s a large threat, so, of course, we have to err on the side of caution and take it seriously,” Police Commissioner Ray Martinez said by phone Tuesday afternoon. The threat was called in around 11 a.m. and in response, both VIPD and V.I. Port Authority officers assembled, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and K9 units that ultimately found no devices on the campus.

What they did find while tracing the call, however, was that the threat had been placed by students at the Addelita Cancryn Intermediate and Junior High School against Lockhart, which houses kindergarten through third graders who were evacuated from the classrooms while their campus was locked down and searched.

No arrests have been made yet, but that is a possibility, though neither VIPD nor Education officials believe that the students who made the call would be tried as adults if so. A decision could be made by the V.I. Superior Court’s Family Division within the next day or two, and the students themselves could be facing suspension or expulsion – but really, what’s at the heart of the matter, as incidents like these become more frequent, is how Education will tackle student behavioral issues ahead of time so that the risks of future threats are minimized, shared Education Commissioner Dionne Wells-Hedrington.