Charges against a juvenile who allegedly called in a bomb threat to the McCurdy Charter School, Feb. 22, have been forwarded to the Juvenile Probation Office.
Española Deputy Police Chief Matthew Vigil said officers detained one unnamed McCurdy student, bringing him to the police station, but released him to the custody of his parents.
Since Española Police handed over the case, it’s now up to the Juvenile Probation Office to decide whether to charge the student, he said in a Monday telephone interview.
A man was also initially suspected of having some involvement, but he was later cleared of any wrongdoing, Vigil said.
“(We’re not) exactly sure why he (called in the threat),” Vigil said. “We know there was a conflict with one of the teachers, but we don’t know if that’s the reason why.”
The threat was initially received by the Santa Fe Regional Dispatch Center around 11:18 a.m. Those dispatchers then relayed the information to the Española dispatchers. Students were evacuated from the buildings and told to gather on the football field, per the school’s evacuation plans, Vigil said.
By 1 p.m., the students were told to go back to their classes.
According to dispatch logs, the 911 caller said a specific teacher was going to blow up the Española Valley High School, then hung up.
When the unnamed student made the 911 call, his phone number showed up. Dispatchers were then able to look up the subscriber information, which led them to the student.
Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s deputy, Sammy Marquez, assigned to the high school, told dispatchers that the named teacher did not work there and it was possible Santa Fe dispatchers confused the high school and McCurdy, the logs state.
At 11:36 a.m., someone with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office called Española dispatchers to report there was a bomb threat at McCurdy School.
Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the school, along with Española city and State Police officers.
McCurdy’s Head of Operations Christian Lopez said, Feb. 22, that officers instructed him to evacuate all the buildings, following the threat.
After officers searched the grounds and found nothing suspicious, they were able to locate and detain the unnamed juvenile and took him to the Española Police Department to be interviewed.
Lopez said the older students were already on their lunch break when the threat was called in, so it was easy to move them to the football field.
“The kids know when it’s something (real),” Lopez said. “They took it seriously. They moved pretty quickly.”
McCurdy Director Janette Archuleta said some of the students were not able to finish their lunches when the evacuation was announced, so pizza and soda were ordered for them.
“It’s not a typical lunch, but considering the circumstances, we wanted to get them something to eat,” she said.
Parents were alerted to what was going on through emails and text messages. Only one parent told Archuleta that she did not receive the notification.
“After any incident such as this, we do an evaluation to see if any parent wasn’t informed and we welcome them letting us know, so we can check our contact information lists,” she said.
Archuleta said she could not comment on the status of the student who allegedly called in the threat.