Students across Massachusetts will return to class Wednesday following threats against over a dozen districts earlier this week.
State and local police throughout Massachusetts responded to numerous bomb and shooting threats targeting schools for a second straight day on Tuesday, with officials again finding the called-in threats to be unfounded.
“For the second consecutive day Massachusetts State Police units are responding to assist local police in multiple communities following bomb and shooting threats to schools,” MSP Media Communications Director Dave Procopio said in a statement. “Thus far every call has been determined to be a hoax.”
Reports spanned from Berkshire County to Martha’s Vineyard, according to Procopio, with many of the threats first being reported around 10 a.m.
Schools in Springfield, Great Barrington, Edgartown and Fall River were some of the scenes state troopers and local police responded to. With K9 and Bomb Squad units brought in, each school was individually cleared by authorities as the calls seemed to keep coming through the morning.
According to Procopio, the threats were “consistent in content with each other” as well as swatting threats made to schools on Monday.
“This was a vicious hoax, there was no active shooter,” tweeted the Duxbury Police Department, which had officers respond to the local high school for a report of an active shooter. “The procedural response from police was impressive and necessary. DPD will remain vigilant.”
Other affected communities included Cohasset, Hingham, Dedham, and Concord, Mass., with some schools going on lockdown as a result of the threats.
In Clinton, the middle and high schools were locked down for nearly two hours as officers cleared the facilities.
“We knew exactly what it meant, we did everything and all of the protocols – lights off, stand by the door,” said Nick Ceffalo, a special education aide at Clinton Public Schools. “I stood by the door just in case – kids got under the desk.”
“My friend almost had a panic attack,” said Juan Rivera, a freshman at Clinton High School. “I felt scared, but I was trying to calm everyone else down, as well.”
Officials, including Amesbury Police Chief Craig Bailey, said swatting calls like the one his department responded to on Monday were a “tremendous amount of police and emergency resources, diverting those resources away from other potential emergencies.”
It was a sentiment shared by law enforcement and security expert Todd McGhee, who spoke with 7NEWS about the called in threats.
“That, obviously, is a drain on the actual communities because other crime, other things are happening,” McGhee said. “Accidents, domestics, all types of different calls for service are happening (in) real-time as law enforcement is prioritizing the level of threat to the community.”
In statements from both state police as well as numerous local police departments, officials reiterated that calls made on both Monday and Tuesday were under investigation.
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