It was supposed to be funny.
That was the motivation behind an Athens High School student’s placement of two notes in a girl’s bathroom Monday indicating a bomb in the building would explode at 1:30 p.m. The same student, an unidentified girl whose name school and law enforcement officials would not release, then told school officials about the notes as if she had just found them.
The chain of events was described in detail Tuesday morning as part of Athens County Interim Replacement Sheriff Rodney Smith’s morning news release to reporters.
The case regarding a bomb threat at Athens High School is closed and charges will be pursued, Smith said.
School officials are currently requesting criminal charges for inducing panic be brought against the student who made the threat, according to the sheriff’s office release.
Should charges be brought, the case would be tried in juvenile court, according to the release. Inducing panic can range from a fourth-degree misdemeanor to a second-degree felony, but the student will not likely face the felony charge, Smith said.
“We’re going to run it by the prosecutor’s office,” he said. “But I don’t think it will be a felony.”
Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn agreed that a felony would be unlikely for a juvenile.
“The purpose of sentencing is to rehabilitate the juvenile, and that will be up to the judge,” Blackburn added. “(It’s a) very unlikely feat to have someone sentenced to 180 days in juvenile hall.”
“She just said it was a prank (and) thought it would be funny,” Smith said of the interview with the student.
The student allegedly placed the two notes — one that stated the threat and another indicating when the “bomb” would go off — in the girl’s restroom at about 9 a.m. before reporting it to authorities. The school was evacuated and students were moved to a safe location away from the school building while the sheriff’s office and The Plains Volunteer Fire Department moved in to investigate.
They cleared the building of any bombs and, after reviewing video surveillance tapes, discovered the student’s plot and got her to confess.
By 10:30 a.m., students were allowed back into the building.
“Nobody was really concerned, but we knew the teachers didn’t know about it,” Emma McLaughlin, a senior at Athens High School, said of an announcement over the intercom letting people in the building know to get out. “It was pretty clear because all our teachers, when there’s a fire drill, they’re usually expecting it.”
McLaughlin added that she thought the school handled the situation well, and that things were already back to normal at the school.
“I know a lot of people were taking selfies with the hashtag #bombthreat2k14,” McLaughlin said. “Nobody was scared. Once we got back to class everyone was like, ‘Another day at AHS.’”
She added that she hasn’t heard much speculation about who placed the notes in the bathroom.
As of Tuesday, everything seemed to be back to normal at school, said Carl Martin, superintendent of the Athens City School District.
“I think people pretty well moved on,” Martin said. “It was certainly not something we take lightly and certainly something we’re not very pleased about. I felt a lot better when we knew who did it and that there was not a threat to our safety.”
But Smith said from a law enforcement perspective, “Everything’s back to normal. The case is finished. It’s closed.”
@LucasDaprile
ld311710@ohiou.edu
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Faux bomb threat was meant to be prank."
