Secure Environment Consultants founder and President Jason Russell is a former Secret Service agent. His company works with thousands of schools across the country to help make them safer. He says with the recent round of threats made to school districts, it’s important for parents to get their information from verified sources.
“The only two legitimate sources are going to be the school district and law enforcement, right? Anything else is potentially not real. We saw it. We’ve seen it here and there in West Michigan with some of the threats where social media takes over and just gets out of control.”
At least six online or word of mouth threats were made to West Michigan school districts over the last two weeks of September, forcing districts to close buildings and cancel evening activities while investigations took place. Thankfully, those threats were unsubstantiated. Still, Russell says if students see or hear something, they should say something, but need to say it to the right people.
“In other words, saying something on Snapchat to your friends isn’t appropriate, but saying something to your parents who then take it to law enforcement or call the police or call the school district is appropriate.”
Russell says while most threats turn out to be fake, schools should continue to assume all threats are real until an investigation by the district and law enforcement proves otherwise, and such investigations may involve closing schools for a time.
