OT: Threat closes Columbine High

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/16/columbine.02/index.html

Classes at Columbine High School, the scene of a student massacre in April, were canceled Thursday and Friday because of a "credible threat" received by a student in an Internet chat room.

Jefferson County School District officials would not give details, except to say that a student received the threat while at home Wednesday night.

Spokeswoman Marilyn Saltzman said officials considered it a "credible threat" and responded by ordering the two-day closing. Another school spokesman, Rick Kaufman, said the threat was "more in the form of a warning."

"In the interest of the safety and emotional well-being of our community, we canceled classes," he said.

"One of our students received a warning ... through the Internet last night at their house," Kaufman said. The family of the student who saw it immediately contacted the sheriff's department and Columbine school security, Kaufman said.

Twelve Columbine students and a teacher were killed April 20 by teen-age gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who then killed themselves.

"Any threats, we take them very, very seriously now," Jefferson County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Davis said. "We have to have almost zero tolerance."

Students had been scheduled to take final exams on Thursday and to start their Christmas holidays on Monday. Due to the threat, school officials decided to close the school on Thursday until January 4 and reschedule the final exams for sometime in January.

"It's hard for the students to concentrate on finals when they hear about a threat," Saltzman said.

She said the grounds outside the school and the school itself had been searched thoroughly and that no dangerous device had been found.

Many people in the area have been on edge this week after officials made public two and a half hours of videotapes made by Harris and Klebold, detailing their plans to attack Columbine.

Another student, who was described as an acquaintance of the gunmen, pleaded guilty this week to two misdemeanor accounts after allegedly threatening to "finish the job" in a personal journal.

The boy had no weapons and did not intend to carry out the threat, prosecutors said, in agreeing to drop two felony counts against the 17-year-old.

-- here we go (ag@i.n), December 17, 1999


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