Western student arrested for threats to schools

A 15-year-old Western High student, apparently upset about a punishment he'd gotten at school, called in two false threats that caused heightened security alerts at Western and Valley high schools, according to Shively police Sgt. Josh Myers.

The boy, who was not named because of his age, was arrested Friday morning on three counts of terroristic threatening in the second degree for the 911 calls he placed on Sept. 18 and 30, Myers said.

Myers said the boy confessed to making both calls and said there is no evidence the threats were anything but hoaxes nor that anyone else was involved.

"These types of false phone calls cannot and will not be tolerated in this community," Myers said, saying that the possibility of a real threat to a school, like the school shooting at a community college in Oregon on Thursday, "keeps us awake at night."

He said police responses are always tailored to the idea that the threat is real. "We don't treat it as a hoax. We respond under the impression that the act is actually going on."

Myers said it appears the boy had gotten in trouble in school and had been assigned to in-school suspension on Sept. 18 when he decided to call in the first threat to Western High. That phone call caused Western High to be locked down for more than an hour and for police to make sweeps of the building.

When asked about the motive for the second phone call, Myers said there didn't appear to be one other than, "I guess it worked the first time." He said the boy used to be a student at Valley High School.

That call caused Jefferson County Public Schools to add extra security and a heightened alert at the two schools, but it stopped short of locking the schools down.

The boy was identified after police released the audio of the two 911 recordings to the media, Myers said. A family member of the boy recognized the voice and talked to the boy about it, getting him to admit to making the calls, Myers said.

Myers thanked the family member, saying the arrest would not have been able to made so quickly without that person. He said he could not comment on whether the boy had any past criminal history.

"A lot of us tend to do before we think, and I think that may have been the situation here," Myers said.

JCPS spokeswoman Bonnie Hackbarth thanked Shively police for their work that led to the arrest of the boy.

"The safety of our students and staff is our No. 1 priority, and so we have to take these threats seriously," Hackbarth said.  "Our students need to feel safe and secure in class, and to be in class all day, every day, in order to perform at their best."

Reporter Allison Ross can be reached at (502) 582-4241. Follow the Courier-Journal’s education team on Facebook at Facebook.com/SchooledCJ.