HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — The school’s been given the all clear and students have now gone home, but It was a tense afternoon at Glen Allen High School after someone found a bomb threat written on a note planted in a school bathroom.
Administration immediately called police and evacuated the school.
Thousands of students were sent to the football field for about two hours while Henrico police and fire searched the building for threats.
At one point, someone thought they discovered a suspicious package in a classroom, but explosive sniffing dogs quickly proved that package was OK and that there were no explosives in the building.
This is Andy Jenks again on behalf of Dr. Miller with another update.
We are happy to report that police have completed a sweep of the building and have given us the “all clear”. We are bringing our students back into the building and then we will dismiss at the scheduled time. After-school activities will take place on the usual schedule.
Dr. Miller looks forward to following up with additional thoughts later today. For now, thank you for your concerns, patience, and understanding. We are very proud of the way our students and staff handled this situation.
Andy Jenks
Director, Communications and Public Relations
This is at least the the third threat at a Henrico County school within the past three weeks, but police and parents insist each one needs to be taken seriously.
“Immediately I got concerned,” said one parent, Cheryl Long. “It’s nothing you ever want to take lightly because you never know if it’s viable or not.”
Lt. Chris Eley with Henrico County Police added, “the last thing we want is something to happen in schools that could have been prevented, so anytime something like this happens, we treat it like the real thing. We don’t dismiss it until we’re confident there’s no threat whatsoever.”
Police are trying to figure who wrote that bomb threat and who left it in the bathroom.
Investigators say if they find out, there’s a very good chance the person responsible could be charged with a crime.
Below is a rundown of the three updates sent by school officials Tuesday:
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., school officials sent a third update to parents informing them that an “all clear” was given by police and that students were being brought back into the building in time for regularly-scheduled dismissal:
