By Mary O’KEEFE

Crescenta Valley High School suspended a student after he made a threat to the school. According to the administration, it was not a substantive threat; however, the school reacted quickly to investigate and let the students and their families know there was no threat and that the campus was safe.

Principal Linda Junge said the student’s name and more information cannot be released because the student is a minor.

Although rumors continue of more threats to the school, there have been no threats actually received. An example can be found of how the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. handles threats by seeing what happened this week in the unincorporated area of Whittier.

The LASD held a news conference on Wednesday to share information with the public about the “thwarted school shooting” at El Camino High School on Friday, Feb. 16.

It began when a school officer overheard a 17-year-old male student make a statement about violence toward the school. Marino Chavez has been a school safety officer for 28 years with the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District and was working at El Camino High School in the unincorporated area of Whittier.

“Marino Chavez heard [the boy] say he would [allegedly] shoot up the school sometime in the next three weeks,” said LASD Sheriff Jim McDonnell.

“I questioned him and brought him to the office and he confirmed what he said,” Chavez said. He added the boy did say he was just kidding and did not mean what he said.

“You can’t say those things on a school campus,” he told the boy.

Chavez contacted the sheriff’s department.

The boy was apparently angry because a teacher had disciplined him over having earbuds, or phone headsets, on during class.

McDonnell said during the investigation deputies discovered the boy had an extensive disciplinary history with the district and learned there was a Smith & Wesson semi automatic weapon registered to his home address. Investigators were issued a search warrant and discovered the home had several guns. The boy’s 28-year-old brother, a U.S. Army veteran, told the deputies the firearms belonged to him.

Deputies found two AR-15 rifles, two handguns and 90 high-capacity magazines, McDonnell said.

“One of the [AR-15s] was not registered, which in California is a felony,” the sheriff added. “The [juvenile] was arrested for making a criminal threat. His brother was arrested on [Tuesday] on five criminal charges including possession of an assault weapon, import of high-capacity magazines, criminal storage of firearms and the failure to register a personal handgun.”

The ultimate goal, McDonnell said, is to get help for those who are making these types of threats and to act quickly. He praised the school resource department for reporting what they heard. He added school shootings are not a problem that can be quickly fixed and that it would take everyone working together to be proactive to stop the shootings before they happen.

This threat comes just days after the Feb. 14 mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where 17 people were killed. McDonnell said the Florida shooting is now the eighth deadliest school shooting in U.S. history and that threats are something the department “takes very seriously.”

In 2017, the department received 52 tips of schools being threatened.

“Seventeen of the threats involved community colleges,” he said.

The LASD works with agencies within the LA County and the FBI to investigate these threats.

“Since Feb. 14, there have been 19 [tips of threats of school violence] in LA County,” he added. “This is the second serious threat at El Camino High School in just the last week. The day before, Feb. 15, a student who was suspended for using his cellphone in the classroom told his mother he wanted the school administration dead.”

The mother told the administration, concerned for her son and the school.

“Out of these [threats investigated], there was a case of a 10-year-old who was upset that his teacher had changed his classroom seat and he said he was going to get a rifle and shoot up the town carnival. Another case was of a 12-year-old who said he was going to do a Florida-style shooting because his teacher took his Oreo cookies away,” McDonnell said.

He said school shootings are something on which everyone has to work together to find those who need help, and to get them the help they need.

  Mary Okeefe