Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - School districts in Western New York and across the country have been the target of anonymous threats recently, leading to an immediate response from local police and other law enforcement agencies.
Just this week alone locally, school districts in Clarence, Lockport and Batavia received threats that garnered the response of law enforcement. Meanwhile, Niagara-Wheatfield High School saw police respond to the school on Monday after their lockdown security system was accidently triggered.
In addition, last week saw the arrest of a 15-year-old teen after FBI offices in Atlanta discovered an online threat made on Discord against an unspecified school in the Buffalo Public School District.
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Jeff Rinaldo with Vista Security Group, and a former captain with the Buffalo Police Department, says the recent rise in threats against schools are very concerning, simply because they require a response.
"What we see a lot of times is that students are making these requests to disrupt the school day, and they become not only disruptive, but costly. They become an area of concern for law enforcement that has to respond to these things. So police departments now take these threats serious, and they will investigate them to completion," said Rinaldo in an interview with WBEN.
Local police departments also share the same concerns with the rise in school threats being made.
While Hamburg Police Cpt. Todd Ehret says they have not seen a rise in threats in either of the school districts they partner with - Frontier and Hamburg - the police department takes every threat extremely seriously.
"They're investigated in the same manner all the time," said Cpt. Ehret with WBEN. "We obviously have seen a rise nationwide. We're cognizant to the fact that there have been several as of late."
Anytime an anonymous threat may be made against any school in the Hamburg or Frontier School Districts, Cpt. Ehret says the police department immediately takes action, where officials follow a long standing policy that is reviewed frequently and updated when it needs to be with the district.
"Our policy pretty much entails that they're responded to immediately, that a supervisor is notified, that a supervisor makes a notification to have an investigator assigned to the case that happens in a very fast manner. And we do also involve our SROs in the investigative process," Cpt. Ehret detailed. "So when something like this happens, we already have a policy in place on how we deal with it. We're comfortable with it, but we do review it constantly to make sure that it's still effective. And because we involve the SROs, who have knowledge of the kids in the schools, it's been kind of a comprehensive approach, and it works well."
In today's age of technology and resources available, Rinaldo says there are several methods that can be utilized to investigate an anonymous school threat.
"You see local police departments, as well as state, county, federal agencies utilizing a lot of investigative tools to get to the root of where the threat came from. Whether it's phoned in or, what you're seeing in a lot of cases now, is social media threats being posted," Rinaldo noted. "But as anonymous as you may believe you are online, that's not necessarily true. There's a digital fingerprint left in almost every one of these cases, and law enforcement has become really good at finding the source of these threats."
Even for the threats like the one against Clarence High School with a message graffitied on a sidewalk near the school, Rinaldo says authorities can get enough information and evidence to track down a threat.
"With the amount of video surveillance that's present not only on businesses and schools, but as well as private residences and even dash cams, chances are good that there will be some evidence recovered that will give the police an idea of a possible suspect description, and/or places for them to focus their investigation on," he said.
And no matter the threat made against any school in the area, every threat is taken as being credible until proven otherwise.
"It's not until via an investigation that law enforcement really determines whether or not there's any credibility to it. But it's really those partnerships between the schools and their local law enforcement agencies that allow them to get quickly in front of these things, investigate them, and then make a determination as to whether or not further steps should be taken by the schools," Rinaldo said.
"We don't deem any threat to be not credible until it's thoroughly investigated," Cpt. Ehret echoed. "So when people do make threats to the school, whether credible or not, it does tie up substantial amount of resources, and we feel it's in the best interests of our agency, our community and the school system to make sure that each of those school threats is investigated as a credible threat."
Anytime there's an incident that happens, whether it's a threat received or a lockdown that occurs, the districts and law enforcement officials will have an additional police presence on-hand for a couple of purposes.
"No. 1, it does provide for additional resources, should something happen at the school, but also it serves as a calming factor," Rinaldo said. "It shows that the commitment from law enforcement, the commitment from the school district, and ensuring the safety of the students and the faculty is the highest priority for every school district here in Western New York."
As for Hamburg Police, the department will continue its long-standing relationship with the school systems they serve, with officers present around the clock whenever needed.
"Our officers are present at drop-off and pick-up for every school in the school system. We have SROs in the school systems, our officers do walk-throughs during the day. So as far as elevated deployment of resources, we already are doing that, and we do that every day during the school year," Cpt. Ehret detailed. "There's officers that are assigned in the morning to be there, there's officers that are assigned in the afternoon to be there, and they're assigned during their shift to check on the school systems. We are in constant communication with our SROs, they bring issues to us that need to be addressed, and vice versa. We have a very good working relationship with the school, we sit on the Safe Schools Committees for both Frontier and Hamburg. So we're very active in planning how to use our resources in an effective manner in order to keep the kids in the school safe."