LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. — In just the last few days, multiple school districts in the Kansas City metropolitan area were targets of online threats.
A student was arrested in Blue Springs, another student was taken into custody in Lee’s Summit and investigators are still looking into a vague threat that would impact four school districts—Grandview, Independence, Lee’s Summit, and Raytown.
“Anytime there's a shooting on the national stage, it reaffirms that anxiety and fear both in parents and students. So it’s not uncommon for us to see an uptick in threat, copycat type threats, things like that,” said Sgt. Chris Depue with the Lee’s Summit Police Department.
Depue says while a spike like this is not uncommon, especially at the beginning of the school year, it is never okay. Regardless of their intentions, these types of crimes are felony offenses even for juveniles.
“You’ll be prosecuted. So you’re looking at both school discipline as well as criminal prosecution, it could make a major detour in a young person’s life,” said Depue. “It causes a lot of fear and anxiety, economic damage to a school district, as well as to parents and students.”
School officials say threats like this disrupt learning and consume staff resources which are often already stretched thin. For instance, Monday’s threat in the Lee’s Summit R7 School District pulled 15 officers from LSPD, in addition to district personnel from 4 p.m. to midnight.
Security is increased on campuses in the following days as well, demanding additional manpower after the initial incident.
“All threats have to be corroborated, investigated and ultimately determined their credibility. And that can be challenging for us and the school district,” said Depue. “It’s a tax on our resource that doesn’t have to occur, that’s what’s maddening about it.”
Like thousands of parents in the Lee’s Summit R7 School District, Melanie Olson-Cox woke up on Tuesday morning to a mass email about an online threat made on Monday afternoon.
“My first reaction is always just, why is it like this?” said Olson-Cox.
She says she does what she can as a mom, which is limit her children’s social media exposure, check in on mental health, and have conversations about safety and how to report.
But in this day and age, Olson-Cox says we need to look at other ways to crack down even more.
“I do believe that there's you know, common sense gun reforms and ways to handle some of these things,” said Olson-Cox. “We’ve really put our kids in harm’s way at this point, and I just don’t know what else we can do. I mean how else will we protect them if we don’t look into some of those options.”
Law enforcement and school officials encourage parents and students to take a screenshot of any suspicious posts online and alert the authorities right away.
While they encourage information sharing, they advise against reposting or resharing the posts as this could make it more difficult for investigators to track down the suspect.
Depue says first, check the date of the post to make sure it is timely and relevant. If you decide to share it, make a mental note of the date, time and where you found the post. This information could help law enforcement with the investigation.
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