Parents of Big Sandy students started the morning last Wednesday, January 17th, with a potentially alarming text message announcement from the school. It read: “Last night Big Sandy School District and numerous schools across Montana received an emailed bomb threat stating that bombs had been placed in schools. We believe at least 75 school districts are affected. We have consulted law enforcement and, although we do not see this as a credible threat, Chouteau County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Echols and I searched both campuses thoroughly and did not discover anything out of place or suspicious. Unless we hear otherwise from law enforcement, we are planning to hold school as usual today.”
Dan Schrock, the superintendent of Big Sandy Schools, explained a little more about the disconcerting message: “Tuesday evening, at 9:15, I got a call from the Chouteau County Sheriff’s Department informing me that the Big Sandy School District had been listed in a threat that included about 74 other schools around the state.”
The emailed bomb threat claimed to be from the Houthi pirate group in Yemen, which have been prominent in the news over the last several weeks. The Houthis have been active in the Red Sea harassing shipping and blockading Israeli sea ports. The email claimed that bombs had been placed in schools all over Montana in retaliation for US military action against the pirate group.
“The sheriff’s department was kind enough to offer to come through and sweep both school campuses to see if anything was out of place or out of the ordinary. Deputy Echols called me and I met him over at the elementary school at 10:30. We swept every area of the classrooms, common areas, etc.” The search concluded late that night, having found nothing out of the ordinary.
Superintendent Schrock explained that the decision to notify the community of the threat was made based on a desire to be transparent with parents. Some school staff expressed appreciation for the administration and sheriff’s department’s decision to take the matter seriously and handle it with the diligence due to a threat of that nature. He emphasized that the safety of the students and staff is the number one priority at Big Sandy Schools.
Deputy Echols explained that in addition to their search, part of a plan for handling the situation that includes the support of bomb disposal units out of Maelstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls. In the event the search had encountered anything suspicious, a unit of with bomb sniffing dogs and specialized training would have been deployed to manage the situation.
Deputy Echols also explained that he had received confirmation that the email did originate overseas and that all of the email addresses that received the threat could be obtained online through web searches. He explained that the vague nature of the threats, the large number of schools included, and other factors suggested the threat itself was a hoax. “From what they’ve been able to determine, they (the sender of the email) went online, searched” and collected email addresses that were “available on the Office of Public Instructions website of contact emails. In addition, many of the email addresses were invalid because of staff changes at different schools. “So wherever they’re getting their information, a lot of it was outdated. That’s part of why they considered it less credible, because they did not use accurate information.”
Deputy Echols also pointed out that the local schools have a variety of security measures in place that limit the accessibility of their campuses. Locked doors, security cameras, and other measures, combined with the small size of our schools make it more difficult for an intruder with malicious intent to enter unnoticed.
The threat itself is being investigated by the appropriate agencies. This event demonstrates that vigilance of Big Sandy School administration and local law enforcement for the safety of our students and staff.
