Basehor Police Investigate Shooting Threat
January 25, 2021
Students and staff were on edge earlier this week when, on Monday, Jan. 18, a school-shooting threat was made against Basehor-Linwood High School. The threat had been sent to a freshman student online through Snapchat. That student then brought it to the attention of administrators. With everyone on high alert, a police investigation was prompted for the threat.
“We take every threat seriously and this was the same way. Basehor PD sprung into action, which included an increased presence at the building and detectives immediately took on an investigation.We have a defined plan when dealing with a crisis. Basehor PD is immediately contacted along with all administrators including all at the district level. We work together to decide on the next course of action,” said vice principal Jared Jackson.
As more information was filtered in and the message was shared on social media, the district made the decision to make a statement to parents and students in an email, informing them about the threat. In the meantime, the police department went about their investigation. The plan was for school to remain on a normal schedule the following day, with additional officers on campus. However, some students still chose to remain at home for the day.
“Events like this do bring awareness to the forefront of our minds about serious situations. In times of crisis, we have to refer back to previous training and think through situations and how they should be handled moving forward,” said Jackson.
The school has a crisis plan based on the ALICE principles. This includes Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate.
“We had one of our detectives trace the IP address of the person who sent this message in order to try and identify who was making this threat,” said SRO officer Eric Witzleb.
After investigating into the source, the police conquered that the threat was not credible, since when detectives looked into the username, they had found that it had come from an IP address in California. The Basehor Police Department had concluded that there was no immediate threat to the school.
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