Schools, law enforcement work together in responding to school threats

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Threats of violence to South Valley schools are keeping law enforcement and school districts on high alert as they work to identify possible threats and stop them before students get hurt.

Early Tuesday morning around 1:30 with just three officers on duty at the Lindsay Police Department an urgent alert came in from the FBI.

Someone had posted online threatening a school shooting at Lindsay High School later that day.

Immediately more officers were called to help as they worked to find an IP address and physical address to determine who made this threat and how serious it really was.

"Threats of this nature with the things that go on in our country in the past and present, we take this very serious and we have to act on them immediately," said Lindsay Police Chief Rob Moore.

Just a few hours later, around 5 am, Chief Rob Moore said his officers were at the home of a 15-year-old girl who admitted to making the post hoping to extend her holiday weekend.

Moore says the family doesn't have any guns at home so there was no real threat but she was booked on a very real charge of making criminal threats.

Lindsay Unified School District sent Action News a statement that read:

"Prior to the start of the school day, the Lindsay Police Department confirmed that there was no immediate threat to any of our school sites. In collaboration with the LPD, Lindsay Unified School District promptly informed families and staff about the situation and the resolution of the potential threat. We remain committed to working closely with local law enforcement to ensure the continued safety of our learners and staff."

Only weeks into the school year, two other Tulare County schools were threatened.

On August 16, Visalia police arrested a 13-year-old boy for threatening a shooting at Ridgeview Middle School that threat was apparently made on a video call.

Then ten days later, on August 26th, a student was arrested at Golden West High School after they allegedly posted on social media that they had a gun on campus and police found the gun in a car in the school parking.

Visalia Unified School District has steps in place to address these kinds of incidents.

"The first thing we do is deploy our threat assessment, determine what level threat it is, and we also bring in our Visalia Police Department to assist us while we're doing that," said Terri Martindale, Visalia Unified School District.

After a threat is made and the school community is alerted, a crisis team of social workers and psychologists is sent to campus.

"We want to be there to make them feel safe and make sure that they know that how they're feeling is valid and we want to make sure to get them back on the right track so they can learn and that they feel like school is a safe place," said Martindale.

The district also increases law enforcement presence on-site including undercover officers.

Martindale with Visalia Unified said students could be expelled for making threats on top of the criminal charges they could face.

VUSD students are encouraged to report threats they see or hear to school officials or anonymously through the Say Something system.

For news updates, follow Kate Nemarich on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.