Some knucklehead managed to tie up officers from the Moody County Sheriff’s Office, Flandreau city police, Flandreau tribal police, Highway Patrol, Game Fish and Parks, Madison city police, and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, plus Flandreau firemen and Moody County Ambulance, responding to two bomb threats in Flandreau school district on the second day of school:
The Moody County Sheriff’s Office announced on social media, a threat was called into the school at 9:10 a.m. and the school was immediately put on lock down.
Authorities said 25 law enforcement officers responded to the call and a bomb disposal unit was on standby. After a search of the school, the building was given back to school administrators, authorities said.
…Later Tuesday afternoon, the school announced it received a bomb threat for a second time.
“All students are currently safe and all grades are at the park next to the city pool. All school activities for the evening are canceled,” the post on the school website said [Eric Mayer, “Second Evacuation in Flandreau,” KELO-TV, 2023.08.22].
Flandreau evacuated its schools for both threats (within seven minutes for the morning threat, says the district on Facebook). School safety consultant Kenneth S Trump wrote in 2015 that evacuations create their own safety risks:
Evacuating students and staff from schools or sending children home have safety consequences. While emotionally it is understandable why administrators and parents jump to evacuating students out of the school that received the threat, when administrators send children out of the school they risk exposing them to other threats outside of the school. Walking to a designated school evacuation site or taking them to another school decreases the ability of school administrators, staff and safety staff to supervise students and keep them secure. In cases of threats with questionable credibility, the best place for students may be for them to remain in school under heightened supervision and security while the investigation moves forward [Ken Trump, “Study Finds Rapid Escalation of Violent School Threats,” National School Safety and Security Services, 2015.02.09].
It appears that no explosives were found in the Flandreau schools. With or without a bomb, threatening to blow up a school likely falls under South Dakota’s statute on terroristic threats, SDCL 22-8-13. Such threats are Class 5 felonies, drawing up to five years in the Pen and a $10K fine.
Hold the phone! The “Moody Blues” police group in Flandreau has a school safety consultant named Ken Trump who publicly states that kids are safer staying inside a school where someone has said they put an explosive device? Even a deadly explosive device made from agricultural fertilizer, diesel fuel, and other chemicals readily available on nearby farms.
Even my AI AssIstant is flabbergasted at the arrogance and ignorance of such an assertion.
From my quick research, i can’t find a single bomb that ever went off at a school after a bomb threat. I found 3 total bombs going off in schools in the last 100 years: one in the 1920s, one in the ’50s, and one in the ’70s. I guess if there was a threat at my kid’s school, I would not want her there, either, but statistically speaking, the kids are in no more or less danger within the school than outside after a bomb threat.
Ryan–it is an impossible call for schools. Their only response has to be a full and complete reaction..Safety of their students can be their only acceptable response, before the situation turns deadly, not after. .There are too many crazy people out there who are unpredictably violent.
Cokeville country school bombing in Cokeville, Wyoming in 1986. Religious extremists did a real number. It was a husband and wife who pulled it off. There was an episode of the tv show I Survived with a first person narrative from a student and a woman who was there that day for an interview for a teaching position.
If Congress put just half the effort they focus on Hunter Biden’s d pics into keeping schools safe, we would have some peace. But a bunch of weirdos keep electing dbags because they never grew out of the gossip stage of adolescence and it’s making us all look bad. And our kids are standing by watching while they’re being sacrificed.
If you were really going to bomb a school, why would you call them to tell them about it?
When I was in college, one day the professor announced there was a bomb threat, but he wasn’t leaving. He just told us about it in case anybody wanted to leave. Nobody left.
good points raised that i think support my initial point… bombers wouldn’t call in a warning, so a bomb threat call is almost certainly either a hoax altogether or it’s a diversion for something else, with the worst case scenario being a shooter outside getting a perfect lineup of 100 kids as they evacuate from the fake bomb. There is no good reaction, and probably very difficult to plan for… which is a complete understatement…
Columbine happened in my little town along with more other school shootings than I can remember. I suppose I have a different set of experiences after my daughter went through them. It’s kind of a German thing to put a day’s education above a group of kids safety, huh? That discipline is so important, huh? Right?
Nobody thinks kids should stay in the school during a shooting. We’re talking about bomb threats.
I see your point, Ryan. Thanks for the response. peace, bro