Threats made against 10 Phoenix high schools

Officials looking into posts made on social media

At least 10 Phoenixarea high schools received threats on social media and had been working with police Monday to investigate the recurring online threats.

Classes were not affected at any of the schools, and officials said the threats do not appear to be credible. But many people were still talking about the threats on social media and attendance dropped as the threats spread to other schools.

Mentioned in the threatening posts were Carl T. Hayden Community High School, Maryvale High School, North High School, Cortez High School, Central High School and Trevor G. Browne High School in Phoenix, and Betty H. Fairfax High School and Cesar Chavez High School in Laveen.

Tolleson Union High School District public-relations director Joseph Ortiz confirmed Monday evening that Tolleson Union High School and Copper Canyon High School also received generic threats and were working with police to investigate, but he said students and staff there were calm and mostly unaware of the issue.

“We are aware of the social-media postings and are working with school officials to help ensure everyone’s safety,” said Sgt. Jonathan Howard, a Phoenix Police Department spokesman. “None of the threats were believed to be credible but all have to be taken seriously.”

Seven of the eight schools that have confirmed threats are in the Phoenix Union High School District, which is encouraging students or parents who have information on the incident to contact police at 480-WITNESS (480-948-6377), tollfree at 800-343-TIPS or at silentwitness.org.

First threat

The threat began Sunday night with a socialmedia post mentioning Carl T. Hayden, and school officials immediately began working with police to investigate, according to PUHSD Communications Director Craig Pletenik.

“We had one threat last night at one school and we started working on that; it was three schools by 6 this morning; five schools by 9; we’re hearing now some schools outside our district are getting threats. It’s pervasive and it’s a lot of reposting,” he said.

Although classes were not canceled and Phoenix Union schools never went into lockdown or evacuation, the district had increased security and police presence at the schools. As much as a quarter of the student population was absent at one school, he said.

A Facebook account called Maryvale Memes posted a warning Sunday night about the threats and that they had called police and school security. Their post has been shared over 1,300 times.

Spreading further

The threat spread to Cortez High after someone commenting on the original threat suggested the person not forget about Cortez, and a student at Cortez alerted administrators, according to Glendale Union High School District administrator of community relations Kim Mesquita.

“We called the police and they investigated and clarified the nature of the social-media post and determined it was not a credible threat. We communicated with parents by robo-dialer and email to control rumors and let them know there’s not a threat to campus,” Mesquita said.

Both districts alerted parents early Monday via robocall and email.

The threat did not affect classes at Cortez. There were no plans to cancel Tuesday classes in Phoenix Union schools, Pletenik said.

“A lot of it’s the same threat over and over again, just change the name,” he said. “It was a general threat and it became more and more general the more and more schools that were threatened.”