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School Officials: No Credibility To Threat Against Tate High School
April 6, 2016
Officials say there was no credibility to a rumored threat against Tate High School today.
The rumor began making the rounds a little before 10 p.m. Tuesday as text messages were spread between students. Rumors of those text message threatening a violent act were then posted and spread on social media, often by parents concerned about their children.
But Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said there was no evidence that the threat was credible. He said school district officials and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office worked through the night to track down the source of the alleged threat.
“There was just no credibility to this thing. We would have tracked it down; if it had been credible and the Sheriff’s Office would have been knocking on a door during the middle of the night,” Thomas said, adding that his own granddaughter is in attendance at Tate High today. “It is just too easy to spread false information on social media.”
He encouraged parents to send their children to school and added that there would be an extra law enforcement presence at the campus today out of an abundance of caution.
“It is just going to be a normal day here at Tate High School,” Thomas said from the campus Wednesday morning.
Pictured above: Excerpts from one of the text messages being spread among Tate High School students Tuesday night that was forwarded to NorthEscambia.com. The name of a student mentioned has been redacted. NorthEscambia.com image, click to enlarge.
Comments
20 Responses to “School Officials: No Credibility To Threat Against Tate High School”
What’s done is neither or nor there. My Child does attend Tate, and I want to know what the school’s active shooter policy is? I asked her yesterday afternoon, if Tate had one, and she said, “not that I know of”.
If military and local law enforcement go through these drills. Wouldn’t it be imperative to have a plan for the students?
I did not pick up my child yesterday. Why, because if there had been an active shooter, I would have potentially added additional danger to the situation; by getting in the way of LEO or First Responders should they have been needed. Mass hysteria doesn’t keep your kids safe.
All the parents who say they will keep there kids home ever time there is a threat. You need to home school your kids and let them live in a bubble there enter life. Now all these kids know that if there is a rumor about any kind of trouble they can get a day off. There will be stuff every week. Your child has a much better chance of dying in a car accident than a school shooting, but I bet you let them ride in a car. Use some common sense people
I’m a practical parent. My daughter does not go to Tate however if she did she would have been in school yesterday but not for anything that Thomas or people at the school district said. They, in my opinion, handled this very badly. I had been one of those parents involved in the discussion online about the text messages that were blamed by other media sources for causing the panic. We did not cause the panic we were actually discussing the panic already being caused by students receiving the text messages and discussing what to do about it. We found it had been reported to authorities and they were investigating. We found that if our student was one who received a text message that to be safe we should report it as it might help the investigation (we were not trying to overload the authorities but just give them as much information as we had that could help). We also were able because we knew about it early to discuss with our children the situation and reassure them that everything would be fine. My daughter is not at Tate but it opened a discussion with her as well because I was involved with the group talking about it. We discussed how she should not panic about things like this. We discussed how she should tell someone and talk about it to me or others she knows will not panic if she is afraid. We also talked about how once they determined it was not credible that she should forget about it and go on about her day as if it never happened if she could. Bad things happen every day. We cannot live in fear and let them destroy what we normally do in our lives. School officials should have been upfront and honest about this. They knew about this at 10pm. The first thing that should have happened in the morning is every news outlet should have been informed there was an incident and that it was not credible and to send your kids to school. If they were upset they received a text then have counseling or something available to discuss their fears and show them how to live with them rather than avoid them. Also a phone message should have been sent to Tate students and parents BEFORE school started explaining the situation and telling them it was safe rather than some people hearing rumors of rumors of rumors. Simple honesty and straightforwardness could have eliminated long lines at school and small class sizes.
My child stayed home and will stay home any time I am warned of anything like this. Better safe than sorry is correct! If anything had happened any parent that had sent their child to school would not be able to go back and correct that would they?? Malcolm Thomas telling me that his granddaughter attends and would be there doesn’t make me feel any better either!
I am frustrated by this whole event…in light of the many other school shootings around the country, people have been told to “Say something if you hear or see something”. Isn’t that what happened? Parents reaching out over social media to see if anyone else had heard anything about shooters…and yet I feel like some think it was wrong. When I went to check my son out, because I am a “better safe than sorry” parent, I had not heard that there “was no credible threat”. And what exactly does that mean anyway? I do not think those that chose not to send their children to school or check them out were overreacting. If only one child or teacher were to have been harmed, that is too many. I will act in the same manner if there is any other incident!
I am a graduate of Tate, although it was many years ago. During my years there the worst thing that ever happened was that someone threw a couple cherry bombs in the toilet and it caused a leak. Times have changed much and social media is such an important part of our society that any slight misspoken word suddenly becomes an issue. There is a lot to be said about “the good old days” when shotguns in a truck rack and pocketknives were the norm.
@ Charlene:
The article states: “There was just no credibility to this thing.” And, Mr. Thomas also
“added that there would be an extra law enforcement presence at the campus today out of an abundance of caution.”
If you read the entire article it states no credibility and adds that above as a reason for law enforcement’s presence at the school.
I do agree that our children’s lives are precious, but I also think common sense should prevail in a situation like this. However, it’s a parent’s call whether to check them out or leave them there. I hope the parents that checked them out had them do the school work they were missing!
We sent our daughter to school today as Mr. Thomas suggested, but apparently it was a waste of time as all my child did was watch movies and talk with friends.
It was deemed a hoax and the teachers were required to stay. Why didn’t teachers take advantage of the smaller class sizes and at least review material from the past few weeks with the students who stayed in school?
If there was no creditibility to the threat, why was there so many cops at the school today?
Any child’s life is not worth it!!! Mine will not be in school!!
Boy has schools changed, These things never happened when I went to school, We even went to school with guns in the gun rack LOADED of course , and every one had a pocket knife SOMETIMES TWO OR THREE OF THEM, and knowone ever got shot or stabbed, just the occasional fist fight over some girl, that’s it!!!
I got checked out of school earlier around 10:30. Didn’t really want to ’cause I knew I’d be fine if I stayed, but I was having really bad anxiety about it and my mom was really worried. Better safe than sorry when it comes to this kind of stuff. They had to hold the first bell because so many kids were getting checked out, and even when I went to attendance to leave with my grandpa, there was a line that went outside. First and second period only had 6 kids. I’m going to ask a friend how the rest of the day went to see if it was as bad, tho, things probably calmed down a little towards the end of the day.
I don’t know if they should’ve canceled school today, maybe they should’ve since so much anxiety was caused by the threats, but at least nobody got physically hurt. I say physically hurt ’cause now I’m worried about going to school.
It’s a difficult call. Do we cease normal operations and satisfy the idiots who posted this stuff, or take a chance and keep to a normal schedule with our eyes open? If it does not seem credible, as in this case, I would go with the second scenario and not let people who are simply trying to cause trouble stop the educational process for our students. I lived through 16 bomb threats at Escambia High School as a faculty member, and I can tell you that they really wrecked the educational process, but had no credibility. Keep you eyes open. Don’t let the disenchanted among us control what we think, say and do – just be careful!
My son attends Tate. I graduated from Tate, as did my parents and grandparents.
He was scared and texted me to please come pick him up. Police and Parents were everywhere, it was disastrous to say the least. The school should have been closed when the threats were discovered. It’s a shame!!!
My son asked if this ever happened when I went to school and I said nope….worst was a fight or getting caught smoking in the bathroom. Kids today are not afraid to provoke or spread rumors or even shoot another person.
We are living in a sad world.
Oh so lets not take a threat serious. remember the last time we didnt take a threat serious??? planes flew through buildings!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Agree with all of the above!
Even texts have traceable data associated with them. In the digital age, it is almost impossible to hide.
If they want to know the originating text, they can find it.
If the originator isn’t the one who made the threat, they can be compelled to divulge who these “4 or 5 guys” are who spoke those words.
Terroristic threats are nothing to joke about and can carry a SEVERE penalty.
OR we can teach our children how to be safe, alert, and courageous. Some of these same students will be in the military within the next year. Are they going to be allowed to “stay home” when someone on the other side has a gun? I know several who are going on mission trips, they are leaning on God and not their own understanding.Many of them are drivers. More teens die in car accidents every year than in shootings. Yes, I have grandchildren at Tate. They are in school. They are loved by parents and grandparents and great grandparents….none of us are teaching them to live their lives in fear. When America starts “staying home” in fear, we’re done for.
I would have erred on the side of caution and kept my kids home anyway. Hoping all goes well today and always at all our schools across the Nation.
You know they can send text from phones that don’t have GPS on them like some prepaid phones, and they can go anywhere and send a text making it harder to find them. And I feel that it doesn’t matter how much security you bring on that campus they can still get that gun in there they can still shoot as many people as they can until they are shot most of the time when school shootings happen the shooter wants to be killed therefore what will stop them from doing it with cops there. maybe I’m just an overprotective parent, maybe I’m gullible, I don’t know but I know I wouldn’t play Russian roulette with my child’s life. Now if they had somebody in custody that sent those texts it be a different story but they can’t even say where they came from or whether or not they’re real. Do they know 100% that they are not true?
Happens every April when their are anniversaries of tragic events and the birthdate of a deranged diseased dictator. Unfortunately they get what they are seeking—attention. Sadly law enforcement has to react to situations like this because it’s a hideous reflection of our society by sick individuals.