Second school shooting threat in 90 day has parents, student on edge in Dist. 196
- Harry Colbert, Jr.
- a few seconds ago
- 4 min read
Parents with children in School District 196 are on edge after a second mass shooting threat in just three months time.
As unnerving as the threats to their children are, the parents we spoke to said the lack of communication from district officials adds to their sense of unease and distrust. And while officials say it’s safe for students to attend school in the district, some parents are opting to keep their children at home.
The latest threat to the south metro suburban district came during the early morning hours this past Tuesday, causing officials to cancel classes district-wide. And while the all-clear was issued, there is concern because no suspect has been publicly identified, nor an arrest made. Adding to the angst, a Dec. 16 threat was deemed creditable, yet, at that time not all schools got the message to stay home causing panic at one school, Rosemont High School.
December threat
Sometime during the evening of Dec. 15, students in Dist. 196, which encompasses Rosemount, Apple Valley, Eagan, Burnsville, Coates, Inver Grove Heights and Lakeville, were alerted to posts on social media from someone saying they were going to carry out a mass shooting the next day at an unidentified school in the district. While the threat was known to several students, school officials didn’t act on it until the next morning. An email was sent to parents throughout the district alerting them to the threat and notifying them that classes for the day were canceled. The problem was, parents, students and staff at Rosemount were never issued the alert. If fact, they didn’t get the email until students were already on campus. That oversight was attributed to human error.
That error could have put hundreds in danger. Many students and several staff showed up for classes at Rosemount, only to be immediately herded away amid a heavy police presence.
“Had we known (about the threat) we would have never sent our child to school that day,” said one parent, who asked not to be identified due to safety concerns. “We didn’t get an email about a threat until our child was already at the high school.”
“We were livid,” said another parent with multiple children in the district, including one at Rosemount.
And what angered them further was what they said was a total lack of communication. According to one of the parents, while there was an assembly for students to address the incident following winter break, there was no such gathering for parents, neither in person nor virtual.
The December threat to the district was creditable. An area juvenile was arrested and is being held in a Dakota County detention facility.
The most recent threat
Classes across the metro were canceled on Monday due to the recent snow storm. In Dist. 196, that “break” extended to Tuesday.
Just before 6 a.m. on Tuesday, parents, students and staff were alerted to yet another threat causing districtwide cancellations. The threat was initially investigated by the Eagan Police Department, which determined it came from outside the state, making it a federal case and the FBI was called in. That investigation is ongoing.
“The FBI is investigating the school threats targeting Independent School District 196. We take all potential threats seriously and work closely with our law enforcement partners to determine their credibility, share information, and take appropriate investigative action. As always, we ask members of the public to immediately report threats or suspicious activity to law enforcement,” said the FBI in a statement emailed to Power 104.7.
“They don’t have a plan.”
Although classes resumed on Wednesday, the parents with whom we spoke declined to return their students to school.
“When we got this notification, it was like here we go again,” said one of the parents. “What do you do in this situation? Given how bad they mishandled the first situation, I can’t trust them now.”
Adding to the concern is the issue of school overcrowding.
“Our child had an injury to his leg and in normal circumstances complained about how hard it was to get to class with the hallways so packed,” explained a parent with a student at Rosemont. The same parent said a younger child is in elementary school in the district and it was so overcrowded that the students were placed in makeshift classrooms with no permanent walls nor doors. “When I looked at the set-up I asked, ‘What happens if there’s a school shooting?’ There’s no place to go for safety.”
The parent said the day she voiced her concerns she returned home only to learn about the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in South Minneapolis.
While conducting the interview with two of the parents for this story, we learned of another school shooting threat, this one affecting schools in South St. Paul.
Power 104.7 spoke with an official at Dist. 196, who directed us to a statement on the district's website.
According to the statement, “The messages have been linked to a national trend of threats against schools and other high-profile entities, in which computer-generated messages are intended to cause disruption and fear, aimed at getting the attention of the police and diverting law enforcement attention and emergency resources from other work.”
“(What’s happening) is sad because my daughter wants to see her friends and be a student, but we just can’t risk it right now,” said one of the concerned parents.