Threat shuts down school

Kagman High School went on lockdown yesterday morning after an anonymous perpetrator sent an email to the school’s principal threatening a shootout. The case remains under investigation. (KIMBERLY BAUTISTA)

The Public School System does not take shooting threats lightly, said Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred Ada yesterday, and the punishment for that transgression, if he or she is a student, includes possible expulsion.

This comes soon after Kagman High School received an email threat yesterday morning about a shooting incident that will happen at the school. The school was placed on lockdown as police investigated; the lockdown was lifted around noon later that day.

In a short interview with Ada yesterday, he said that PSS is considering the email as a Category 1 threat in terms of severity, one being the most severe and, depending on the outcome of the investigation being done by the Department of Public Safety and Federal Bureau of Investigation, if it is later determined that the threat came from a specific student, the punishment will most likely be expulsion.

However, Ada added, the consequences also depend on whether it was a prank or had a deeper underlying issue.

“Depending on the investigation and what the outcome is, it’s most likely expulsion and they won’t be able to come back until next year. But a lot of factors come into play. …Maybe this student might be unstable, this student could be under incarceration with [Division of Youth Services], or is this student is undergoing some mental issues, or just being their silly self. But they will be counseled and punished accordingly,” he said.

Ada said DPS, with the help of other agencies like the FBI, will exhaust all resources necessary to find and catch the perpetrator.

“Whoever is involved, know that you will be caught. When people’s lives are at stake, it’s a big issue and it will become a big investigation. They won’t stop until they find the perpetrator. With all this technology, it’s easy to backtrack, so my advice to you students—you’re not going to win, you will get caught,” he said.

According to a DPS statement, DPS received a 911 call from Kagman High School main office around 10:27am yesterday, reporting an email threat sent to the school. At about 10:30am, police officers met with Kagman High principal Leila Staffler, who briefed officers on the incident and showed officers that an email was sent to her school email address from a student’s email address.

The principal met with the student who owned the email address and that student denied sending the email. Upon further investigation, it was found that the student was transitioning to another class during the time when the email was sent. It is now believed that the student may have left his/her email account logged in at one of the school’s computers and another student may have gone online using the logged-in account.

The school was later searched for weapons and, after finding nothing, the school was cleared at approximately 12pm.

“We followed our protocols and conducted a lockdown. We are currently working with investigators and DPS to work out the details. But it was a successful lockdown, not a drill, unfortunately, but we were able to identify just what we needed to do and follow our procedures,” said Staffler. “Thank you for all the parents and people outside that called to check on us. We appreciate your support. We followed our procedures so all students and staff at Kagman are good.”

The case remains ongoing and if you have any information on this incident, call 911. If you wish to remain anonymous, call the CNMI Crime Stoppers hotline at 234-7272. (With a report from Justine Nauta)