Juvenile arrested for threats

Police arrested a male juvenile Wednesday for allegedly making threats against Broomfield High School that led to both an evacuation and a lockout over the last week.

The Broomfield Police Department isn’t releasing the juvenile’s name, but it said he was charged with two counts of false reporting of explosives, seven counts of false reporting and nine counts of interfering with an educational institution.

At least two of the threats were made via false tips to Safe2Tell, an anonymous system for reporting concerns about student safety.

“The impact of these ‘false threats’ are far-reaching and extremely time-consuming, diverting police resources from people who truly need our help while also disrupting the education of thousands of students,” the police department said in a written statement. “The consequences are real.”

Neither the police nor the district would confirm if the suspect attended Broomfield High or had any other connection to the Boulder Valley School District.

Broomfield High School dismissed early and canceled afterschool activities on April 25 after the district received reports of a possible threat. On Tuesday, the high school and Broomfield Heights Middle School went into lockout, meaning no one was allowed to enter or leave the building, following another threat.

Broomfield police didn’t find any weapons or other signs of an immediate threat in either case.

Randy Barber, spokesman for Boulder Valley, said multiple schools have dealt with an unusually high number of reported threats in the last two weeks. He said district officials worked with the police on how to respond in each case, and they appreciate officers’ work to get to the bottom of the threats.

“I think there’s a sense of relief,” he said. “But we really have to be vigilant every day. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”

Broomfield High has had counselors available in case students were rattled by the threats, but

most seem to have handled the situation well, Barber said.

“I think any time you have multiple threats come into a school, whether it’s in a day or over a week, it takes a toll on students and their families,” he said.

Crystal McKown-Stueve, whose son attends Broomfield High, said the evacuation was “a little bit scary,” but her son handled it well and had no trouble going back to school the next day. He also wasn’t particularly bothered by the lockout, since classes continued as normal, she said.

“When we went back the next day (after the evacuation), the parking lot felt a little bit empty, but he was fine,” she said.

It was a bit frustrating not to get more information about what led to the evacuation and lockout, McKown-Stueve said, but she thinks the school district did all it could under the circumstances. In social media communications, Boulder Valley School District said it couldn’t provide more information because of ongoing investigations.

“On the whole, it’s a very safe school,” she said.

Rachel Welte, public information officer for the Broomfield Police Department, said responding to two potential threats at the same school in one week was unusual.

When police respond, officers first work with school security to clear the building and make sure there is no immediate danger, like a student carrying a gun or bomb, Welte said. Once they have established there’s no threat, officers work with the district to determine when school operations can return to normal. Typically, some officers will remain around the school for the rest of the school day, or possibly the next day, to reassure students and their parents, she said.

“Our No. 1 priority is the safety of our community,” she said.

Even before the news broke that someone had been arrested for making threats, some people who identified themselves as parents of Boulder Valley students said they were fed up with reports of danger that turned out not to exist. On Facebook, some called for ending Safe2Tell, removing anonymity or punishing students found to have made false reports.

“Get rid of Safe2Tell Colorado or ensure there is accountability. Enough is enough,” wrote Lisa Taylor, who expressed concerns that students were making false reports to bully others.

Broomfield High also was among the hundreds of schools closed on April 17 during a massive search for a Florida woman who the FBI believed posed a threat to Denver-area schools. She was found dead that day, having killed herself two days earlier.

McKown-Stueve said she also is concerned about false school-threat reports, but worries that attempts to eliminate them could result in missing signs of a real threat.

“Even though it could be a false report, every report needs to be investigated, because if it’s not a false report and we ignore it, kids’ lives could be in danger,” she said.

Out of about 16,000 tips in the fiscal year that ended July 31, 395 were recorded as apparent pranks and 528 involved an attempt to harm or bully someone else, according to Safe2Tell’s annual report to the legislature. Both categories of false tips combined to account for less than 6 percent of all reports.