Bomb threat evacuates BFHS ... again
October 23, 2012
For the third time in as many years, a terse, hand written threat in a Bonners Ferry High School restroom indicating a bomb forced evacuation of the building and an all-out response by emergency personnel this morning.

Unlike such evacuations in the past, however, students, presumptively including the one who scrawled the warning, didn't get an unanticipated day out of school.

Instead, the more than 400 students spent the biggest part of their day locked down in the gym at the middle school, nearly all their bags and belongings gone through as part of the search for a potential explosive device.

"It was stupid," one student said. "They went through everything, even cut an inch out of my deodorant. For lunch we had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana. It totally sucked!"

And while the students were locked down, worried parents lit up the phone lines and social media to try to learn what was going on.

The threat was found almost as soon as students arrived for classes this morning, hand-written on a stall in one of the girl's restrooms.

"Bom 3:30," it read, the word "bomb" misspelled. At 9:04 a.m., the entire school was evacuated, teachers and students sent to the middle school gym. Simultaneously, a full emergency response was being put into place, with the Bonners Ferry Police Department taking charge.

Assistant Police Chief Joel Minor, who was scheduled to work this evening, was called in to take charge, as Police Chief Steve Benkula was out of town.

"Yeah, it makes for a pretty long day," Minor said this afternoon, getting ready to begin his regular shift.

The Bonners Ferry Fire Department had a full response, with fire apparatus set up all the way around the building. Ambulance crews were on-scene and prepared for the worst. Boundary County Emergency Management director Dave Kramer was soon on scene with incident commander Bob Graham, who took the reins from Minor.

Boise Comm was activated, bringing state emergency responders to stand by.

"We can't afford to take these incidents lightly," Minor said, "and the response to a threat like this is a major event.

Initially, the building and grounds, to include student lockers and personal effects, were hand searched by city police officers, sheriff's deputies and two U.S Customs and Border Patrol agents. Even though that search found nothing, the building wasn't declared safe until after a team of U.S. Marshals arrived from Spokane shortly after noon with a specially trained bomb sniffing dog.

Only after they went over the entire school without finding any explosives shortly after 2 p.m. were students allowed to return to their home rooms.

According to Minor, the threat was likely written this morning just before classes got underway.

"We talked to the janitors who cleaned last night," he said, "and none of them saw it."

The culprit is suspected to be a student who likely thought it would be pretty cool to get a free day off, but, thanks to new district policies put in place after the last such threat, which was nearly identical but came during finals, students instead spent an uncomfortable day in a gym.

Also, the odds of finding who's responsible are better this year as video cameras now cover the hallways, including the entrances to restrooms.

"We're going through the tapes, identifying everyone who entered that restroom and we'll be talking to each of them," said district school superintendent Dick Conley. "It's likely that whoever did it thinks it was just a funny prank, but this is extremely serious. We hope that parents will talk to their kids to let them know that this type action is not acceptable, and that if anyone knows anything, they'll let us know. They've gotten away with it before, but it's time to put a stop to this once and for all."

Thanks to the threat, high school students will be called to a mandatory assembly on Wednesday to learn exactly how serious.

Not acceptable, indeed. According to both Minor and Conley, what happened today at Bonners Ferry High School could be classed ... and prosecuted ... as an act of terrorism, invoking severe federal statutes in addition to state charges.

And there needn't be a bomb, either. According to Minor, simply making a false report of a bomb in a public place is a federal offense that could bring up to five years in prison.

In addition to the stiff statutory penalties, the parents of the guilty student could be charged the costs of the emergency response, which could easily exceed $10,000.

"As a parent, can you imagine getting that call?" he asked. "It's so hard to get through to whoever is doing this just how serious it is."

According to Minor, the best bet for whoever did this would be to come forward, admit they made a mistake and accept responsibility for their blunder.

"If that happened, I can see where it would be to their advantage," he said.
"If we have to conduct a full investigation to learn who did this, I'm sure the prosecution will insist on bringing down the full force of the law."