Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
E-mail threat sent to 44 districts statewide
Fairchild Air Force Base airmen arrive at Davenport Elementary School with a bomb dog to check for explosives Wednesday, April 12. No bombs were located in the school district after an email threat came to superintendent Chad Prewitt Wednesday.
DAVENPORT - School district officials here quickly canceled classes and after-school activities Wednesday, April 12, after receiving a bomb threat via email.
Statewide, the threat was sent to 44 school districts statewide, including nearby Wilbur, Creston, Coulee City and Hartline.
The threat ended up being harmless.
Here, no bombs were found in the high school or elementary school after a sweep involving two bomb-detecting dogs from Fairchild Air Force Base.
Superintendent Chad Prewitt said the threat came via email around 11:05 a.m. Wednesday.
The email user "Menosouth" wrote, "We have 10 bombs hidden around the school. They will soon explode. You won't have enough time to save your kids."
Students were promptly evacuated from the school to Trinity Bible Fellowship, 1101 First St., where parents were instructed to retrieve their children. Buses were taking students home by 1:06 p.m., Prewitt said.
"We immediately called law enforcement and evacuated our kids, because we just wanted to be cautious," Prewitt said. "We were hoping it was a hoax, but we generally don't get these types of things in Davenport. So, we just wanted to be extra sensitive."
Airmen from Fairchild arrived at the high school and found no bombs after a 45-minute sweep. Fairchild's K-9s then swept the elementary and middle schools, with the same results.
"We have Fairchild Air Force Base that was able to get here in 20 minutes," Sheriff Gabe Gants said. "Why would we not go through that extra step, just to ensure the safety of everyone?"
Gants said the threat was like one sent throughout Idaho last week and appeared to be targeting superintendents.
"I'm not sure exactly what the intent is of those behind it, but it causes alarm, for sure," Gants said. "It is something we're looking into."
Superintendents in Wilbur, Creston, Coulee City and Hartline received the threatening email, but were cleared from any threat by Wednesday afternoon. K-9 units were deployed in Wilbur.
The school district announced Wednesday evening that school would be back in session Thursday, April 13.
No schools in Spokane County received the threat, but Columbia (Burbank), Columbia (Hunters), Dayton, Ephrata, Colfax, St. John-Endicott, Cusick, Curlew and Colville were other regional schools threatened.
As a precaution, the Whitman County Sheriff's Office also checked Lamont schools.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
Reader Comments(0)