Crime & Courts

Phone threats put schools on alert across Alaska

Threatening phone calls to schools in at least four Alaska school districts have prompted police responses in the past two weeks. In three communities, the threats were made by a caller using an automated or computerized voice, according to school and police officials.

The Fairbanks and Juneau school districts have received multiple calls, officials said. The Anchorage School District received a single threatening call on Monday, said district communications director Heidi Embley.

And the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District got a call Tuesday at Kenai Middle School after students had left for the day. Kenai police responded and are conducting an investigation, said KPBSD communications specialist Pegge Erkeneff.

Erkeneff said the district also heightened its security for two days last week after troopers there warned the district a general threat was made "that included Soldotna area schools."

She said she would not speculate as to whether the threat was related to other incidents around the state. However, last week's threat didn't include a phone call, unlike Tuesday evening's threat, she said.

Alaska State Troopers said Wednesday afternoon that the threats to "several schools" around the state recently are being investigated with local police departments and specific details could not be provided.

FBI spokeswoman Staci Feger-Pellessier said troopers have made the agency aware of the threats. The FBI is evaluating whether the cases fall under federal jurisdiction, she said.

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Police have said the threats are not credible. Officials have declined to detail the specifics of the threats.

Embley wouldn't say which school in Anchorage received the threat. She said a school resource officer responded as a precaution Monday afternoon and the next morning, but the school was not locked down.

The call "was a very generic threat about harming people that was automated ... it wasn't anything specific. It didn't give the school name or anything," Embley said, adding she did not hear the message herself.

In the Juneau School District, three such menacing calls put students, parents and teachers on high alert.

Juneau-Douglas High School and Yaakoosge Daakahidi Alternative High School got the first of the calls on April 27. Those schools and the nearby Harborview Elementary School were put in "stay-put mode," said JSD chief of staff Kristin Bartlett.

On Monday, another threatening call came into Glacier Valley Elementary. And the next day, JDHS was threatened again.

In each instance, the Juneau Police Department responded and "assessed the threat," said JPD Lt. Dave Campbell.

"We're viewing them as individual events, because we don't want to become complacent and think that these are empty threats that shouldn't be taken seriously," Campbell said.

A "digitized" or "automated" voice made threats during the calls, though it is unclear if all the threats share this characteristic, said Campbell and Bartlett.

"There was some sort of electronic masking," Bartlett said, "but I'm not sure if it was a recording or an automated call of some sort."

Fairbanks got the first of its threats on April 28, when Lathrop High and Ryan Middle schools were placed on lockdown after the high school got an "automated threatening phone call," the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

After receiving a similar call on Monday, an elementary school on Fort Wainwright was also placed on lockdown.

Ladd Elementary and Tanana Middle schools were put on lockdown Tuesday. Fairbanks School District spokeswoman Johanna Carson told the News-Miner that the calls included vague threats from an automated female voice.

Carson said in a news release that in response to the threats the district's schools will no longer accept calls from anonymous numbers, an action suggested by police.

In Juneau, Campbell said it is important for the police department to not assume the calls are all the same, or being made by the same person.

"It could be a group or organization doing something on a much larger scale, but it's not unusual for people to see something and copy the methods. It's not safe to assume they're all coming from the same place," the lieutenant said.

Fairbanks police said the calls were "neither acceptable nor funny. These acts are considered felony crimes."

Jerzy Shedlock

Jerzy Shedlock is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2017.

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