Arrest made after bomb threat made to schools

TIFTON — A 15-year-old male student has been arrested in connection to Thursday morning’s bomb threat that led to all Tift County Public Schools being evacuated to several safe locations in the community.

The Tift County Board of Education announced Thursday morning that Tift County schools were under a system wide bomb threat. They noted that all students and staff had been evacuated from the buildings. Parents were permitted to check students out from each schools’ evacuation sites, which were posted shortly after on their website and Facebook page.

Many parents and family members rushed to the sites as soon as the list was made available. One local parent with children who attend G.O. Bailey Primary School told The Tifton Gazette that she learned about the bomb threat through an automated call from the local school system that came to her cell phone and house phone.

Another woman with a niece and nephew who also attend G.O. Bailey called the bomb threat “senseless activity.” She said an unnecessary action such as this interferes with parents’ work schedule and other things they may have to attend to that day.

“This is absurd and crazy...” she stated.

Clearly irritated, she added that she believes the offender should be punished to the highest extent.

By 10:45 a.m., all Tift County Public School buildings had been cleared by local law enforcement. At 11 a.m., each principal began determining the appropriate safe time to return to their building based on vehicle pickup traffic. Once the students returned to their building, schools resumed their normal daily schedule to include the normal dismissal procedure and times. All staff remained at the schools until the end of the school day to ensure students were picked up in a safe manner.

By that afternoon, Tift County Sheriff Gene Scarbrough had announced that no bombs were found and a suspect was in custody. He said the student was taken into custody at approximately 10:30 a.m.

Scarbrough stated that the bomb threat was called in to 911 shortly after 9 a.m. He said within an hour and a half, all schools were evacuated, with assistance from the board of education, and two suspects (a male and female) were detained.

According to a statement from the Tift County Sheriff’s Office, investigators and deputies with the local department responded to Eve Park, the evacuation site for the students and faculty of the Eighth Street Middle School, after a report of a bomb threat. Within minutes of their arrival, two ESMS students were detained and transported to the TCSO.

One of the juveniles has been charged with terroristic threats and acts, disruption or interference with operations of public schools and a false public alarm.

Scarbrough added that “remaining sheriff’s office personnel stood by at Eve Park for crowd control and security measures. School personnel and board of education members were in charge of student pickup.”

He said the female student was released. He explained that the male student allegedly borrowed the female student’s cell phone.

“We don’t think she knew why he wanted to borrow it,” Scarbrough stated. “Our people called the cell phone company and they traced it through the GPS on the cell phone.”

He said the juvenile has been sent to the Eastman Regional Youth Detention Center; his punishment will be determined by juvenile court.

Superintendent Patrick Atwater released the following statement Thursday afternoon in an e-mail:

“The Tift County Public School System initiated a system wide emergency evacuation today, Feb. 28. The order to evacuate was given by me, superintendent, after receiving information from our law enforcement agencies of a bomb threat that included all of our schools. I am sure by now everyone has heard about the incident through one form of communication or another. I am also sure, depending on the circumstances surrounding each individual school and its student body, there are many different versions and opinions of what occurred and how it was addressed (i.e. Eighth Street was delayed in dismissing students to parents at the request of the sheriff’s department due to the ongoing criminal investigation).

“Let me begin by stating it is sad we must prepare ourselves for incidents such as this; with prepare being the key word. In my 23 years as an employee and 12 years as a student, I can honestly say that in my 35 years of experience with Tift County Public Schools, we have never experienced an event like we experienced today. Our system routinely practices fire drills, tornado drills, intruder drills and most importantly, emergency evacuation drills. Each school has a plan for each of these situations, along with many other issues we must concern ourselves with as it relates to student safety.

“Today’s incident was not a drill, it was a real threat not to be taken lightly, confirmed through 911 and relayed to our school system. Unlike our drills which are practiced in isolation by individual schools, today’s incident required the complete evacuation of 8,000 students ranging in age from three to 21. This is not an easy task, nor was it taken lightly. As superintendent, I was proud of the efforts made by our staff to safely and orderly evacuate, and in most cases, dismiss students from an off-site location. In addition to our staff efforts to ensure safe evacuation, I can’t begin to explain the support we received from all law enforcement agencies in Tift County. Our sheriff’s and police departments, state patrol, EMA, 911 and county and city managers were absolutely on top of the situation from the beginning.

“As with any situation of this magnitude, that can’t be practiced on a large scale, we were first pleased to get our students out and dismissed safely. It will now provide us insight into areas that without the ability to have real-time practice, may have not been considered. Our school system and all area support agencies are already reviewing the process for what worked, what could be improved and what changes should be considered for future incidents of this magnitude. This community’s patience and understanding would be greatly appreciated during this process.

“I would like to capitalize on this opportunity and encourage all parents who did not receive any of our phone calls today to contact your child’s school immediately and ask them to verify your personal information. Included in the personal information should be an undated list of who can pick up your child. Many people were turned away at school today because they were not included on a parent pick up list. Without updated information, it is difficult to contact everyone effectively. Our student information system has many capabilities for parents to access and also allows multiple lines of communication. I also encourage those that have access to Facebook to link our site at https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tift-County-Public-Schools/148133941864360 for updates such as those received today.

“In closing, I would like to thank all faculty, staff, support agencies and parents for their concern and support in what was a challenging task for all parties involved.”

To contact reporter Latasha Everson, call 382-4321.

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