Teacher connected to bomb threat note sentenced
Paul T. Jacobs given 14 days in jail, two years probation following February incident
A now former Hazel Park teacher who pleaded guilty to a 1-year misdemeanor for failing to report a bomb threat note in February was sentenced Tuesday to two weeks in jail and two years probation.
Paul T. Jacobs, 40, of Livonia was arrested following the Feb. 2 incident at the Hazel Park Junior High School and arraigned two days later on a misdemeanor charge of an intentional threat to commit an act of violence at a school.
Jacobs was sentenced Tuesday before Hazel Park 43rd District Judge Brian Hartwell. Jacobs gets credit for five days jail time he served in February before posting a $10,000 cash bond, so he now has to spend nine days in the Oakland County Jail.
“His whole intent in doing this is because he wanted a Friday off,” Hazel Park Police Chief Brian Buchholz said Tuesday. “We hope the measures taken today are enough to discourage things like this in the future, not just for Mr. Jacobs but for anyone trying to instill fear in a school or community.”
Under the terms of Jacob’s sentence he has two years of reporting probation, has to pay $2,305 in fines and costs, attend impulse control class, and continue with mental health treatment.
Police earlier said the bomb threat note was found by a staff member at the end of the school day.
Hazel Park’s K-9 officer was in training that day with at least eight other area K-9 units. They all went to the school and did a sweep that failed to turn up any explosive device.
Jacobs later told police he found the note in some homework papers students turned in.
School surveillance video showed Jacobs taking the note and displaying it on the top of a classroom desk near the doorway, police said.
One student looked at the note and put it back on the desk before it fell, print-side down, in the hallway.
Video showed that Jacobs looked around the hallway and flipped the note over with his foot so it could be read, police said.
Jacobs later told police he displayed the note so a student could find it and he
could have the next day off of work, police said.
Hazel Park police, however, were never able to prove that Jacobs wrote the note and he never admitted it.
Buchholz said Jacobs got a sentence that was favorable to him, given that he was a teacher who displayed a note meant to cause enough fear to cancel school classes.
“His actions were on video,” Buchholz said. “He had plenty of time to make things right and he did not. This was not just an error of judgment or a temporary lack of judgment. He had time to make things right.”
The incident happened during a several-month period when there were bomb or similar threats on social media about schools in the region, including Ferndale and Hazel Park.
In a related case, Ryan Nicole Dunlap, 32, a Hazel Park mother was arrested Nov. 28 and later ordered to stand trial for making a false report of terrorism
at Hazel Park High School where her son was a student.
School officials were dealing with a disciplinary issue involving the son made and called Dunlap. During the call, Dunlap was accused of telling the dean of students that “now your school is going to get blown up,” police said.
Dunlap on Monday was sentenced to 365 days in jail, where she has spent the last 176 days, by Oakland County Circuit Judge Daniel P. O’Brien. The sentence includes three years probation, and Dunlap has to get mental health and substance abuse treatment.
“He had plenty of time to make things right and he did not. This was not just an error of judgment or a temporary lack of judgment. He had time to make things right.” — Hazel Park Police Chief Brian Buchholz