No arrests have been made in the bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax at Coronado High School more than a month ago.
Jody Scifres, Lubbock ISD chief of police, said calling in a hoax like that to a public school is a serious offense and felony.
Jody Scifres
Scifres said the person or people responsible for this crime could face up to two years in jail and a fine of $10,000.
“It’s very serious,” Scifres said, “because it disrupts the education of the students, and it also disrupts the emergency personnel that have to resp for other things that are real emergencies.”
If the person responsible happens to be a student, this would result in an automatic placement in an alternative education program and the district will take appropriate and stern discipline action, according to Nancy Sharp, executive director of communications and community relations for LISD.
Sharp said 99.9 percent of the time it is just a hoax, but they are always going to err on the side of caution and evacuate the school.
“That’s why we take the prosecution so seriously,” Sharp said, “because it damaged the academic integrity of the morning today, and that’s very detrimental to students, and so we’re not going to put up with it.”
Sharp said they really want to ask the community and parents to be their partners in solving this and not overreact because what these perpetrators want is to disrupt.
She said that is why they err on the side of caution and resume activities as quickly as possible.
Nancy Sharp
“We’ve got some leads,” Sharp said, “and we’re hoping that our investigation will result in an arrest sooner rather than later.”
To get the perpetrator, Coronado is offering a $100 reward for anyone who might have information about this crime.
“It’s real serious,” Scifres said. “It’s a major disruption when you have a 6-A school and 2,200 students and their parents, the staff, the faculty, everyone involved – it disrupts their entire day.”
Scifres said Lubbock ISD does not want their school to be disrupted and they will take every step of the way to find out who did it and hold them responsible.
After the bomb threat was called in, Sharp said, the school was immediately evacuated and students were directed to gather in the football field while LISD Police, Lubbock Police Department, and the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office searched the building.
Sharp said after no evidence was found and the building was clear, students returned to the campus, and parents were notified through a parent notification system.
“We made a call to all the parents,” she said, “to let them know what had happened, that students were safe and school was going to continue. We reassured them that their child’s safety was our priority and we felt very comfortable that everything was fine, it was nothing more than a hoax.”
Blake Baker and Travis Barber, seniors at Coronado, were both in economics class when the event occurred.
“Well, first the fire alarm lights started going off,” Barber said, “so we first thought it was a fire. Then they came over the announcements and told us to go ahead and evacuate the building, so we went to our nearest door, and they told us to go around the school and go over to the football field.”
Barber said at that point they had no idea what was going on until they got to the football field.
Blake Baker and Travis Barber
“They just came over,” Baker said, “we were all sitting in the stands and they got on the megaphone and they were like, ‘there’s been a threat at the school, there’s currently bomb squad members checking the school.’ They said if we wanted to call our parents we could.”
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