Schools report bomb threats in seven counties

Schools in seven Tennessee counties were evacuated Friday morning because of bomb threats.

No explosives were found at any of the schools, said Lt. Bill Miller of the Tennessee Highway Patrol. Emergency crews were sent to schools in Murfreesboro, Millersville, Greenbrier and Columbia. Threats were also reported at schools in Wilson, Knox and Lewis counties.

Students, teachers and staff at Millersville Elementary were safely escorted to the Millersville City Hall about 420 feet away on 31W Louisville Highway, Sumner County Sheriff Sonny Weatherford said. The sheriff ’s office received a call at 9:48 a.m. on Friday, but nothing had been found nearly two hours later.

Millersville students were dismissed, but teachers were allowed back in the building to finish the day, Miller said.

Robertson County investigators spent most of the day at Greenbrier Middle School but found nothing, according to Greenbrier Deputy Chief Randy Pack. School officials there were notified that a person was inside the building with a bomb, officials said.

Pack said the threat was called into the school at about 11:05 a.m. Students were transferred to nearby Greenbrier High.

Because a bomb was mentioned in the original call to the school, Greenbrier Police asked for assistance from the Metro Nashville Police Department’s bomb squad, which brought in dogs to search the building, Pack said. He said the initial search of the building took about 20 minutes, but a later, more in-depth search lasted for about 45 minutes.

The scene was cleared at about 2 p. m., just as students were being dismissed for the day.

“It’s a school so we had a ton of backpacks,” he said. “A couple of them seemed out of place, but they were fine. Even though this apparently was somebody’s idea of a sick joke, … nobody’s going to hurt these kids and we took it seriously. Hopefully we’ll be able to track this individual down and deal with him.”

In Murfreesboro, students at Black Fox Elementary walked to the neighboring Publix grocery store and loaded buses, causing some shoppers to wonder if students were on a field trip. From the grocery store, children were taken to Hobgood Elementary. By 11:30 a.m., Black Fox was given the all-clear and students returned.

Murfreesboro police Sgt. Kyle Evans said while such threats are not uncommon, “the nature of this call was a little different and as an abundance of caution, we’re taking extreme measures. We treat them all seriously.”

Murfreesboro Police and Fire and Rescue off icials responded to the school and conducted the preliminary search, Evans said. Tennessee Highway Patrol also assisted, and K-9 units were employed in the school-wide sweep.

Several other Murfreesboro City and Rutherford County schools were placed on lockdown as a precaution. No threats were reported to schools operated by Rutherford County.