SPOKANE — A 14-year-old Lind-Ritzville High School student is accused of using the social media app Snapchat to threaten to shoot and bomb his school, prompting officials to close schools Tuesday.
The boy was arrested at a home Tuesday afternoon and booked into the Martin Hall Juvenile Detention Center in Medical Lake on suspicion of felony threats to bomb, Adams County Sheriff Dale Wagner said.
A Facebook post by the sheriff’s office said the boy made “serious threats against the school, including threats of a shooting and bomb attack targeting staff, students, and the facility.”
The sheriff’s office wrote that it believed the boy acted alone. His identity has not been disclosed.
Police found a list of what appeared to be named targets of the suspect, according to a statement from the Ritzville Police Department. Parents were notified if their child was one of the named persons on the list.
The sheriff’s office requested assistance from the Hanford Patrol K-9 unit, and a specialized explosives detection team conducted a sweep of the high school, confirming it was free of any explosives, the sheriff’s office said.
Law enforcement executed search warrants at a Ritzville residence, but didn’t specify whether it was the residence where the student lived, according to the sheriff’s office.
Lind-Ritzville Cooperative Schools closed all schools in its district Tuesday “out of an abundance of caution,” according to a Facebook post by the district.
“These threats included names, methods, and times, and we are taking them very seriously,” according to a letter Tuesday from Lind-Ritzville School District Superintendent Don Vanderholm to Lind-Ritzville parents, students and staff. “In collaboration with local law enforcement, we are actively investigating the situation to determine the credibility of the threats and whether any additional precautions are necessary.”
The letter said district administrators were alerted to the threats Monday night via Snapchat, a social media messaging app.
The district will consult law enforcement to help determine when schools will reopen, the letter said.
Police continue to investigate.
