Police work to identify suspect who led to school lockdown. No school Friday in Blaine
The Blaine Police Department is continuing to investigate, but has not yet identified a suspect who sent two threatening text messages to a Blaine School District student forcing a lockdown of the main campus Wednesday, May 25.
The entire incident occurred approximately 24 hours after an 18-year-old shooter entered an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 students and two teachers, which police say certainly had an impact on Wednesday’s lockdown in Blaine.
Nobody was injured in Wednesday’s incident, according to a joint release from the Blaine School District and Blaine Police Department, and police say rumors about arrests and guns being found on campus are inaccurate.
A female student in the Blaine School District received two text messages on Wednesday — one at approximately 12:15 p.m. and the second about an hour later — Lt. Michael Munden told The Bellingham Herald on Thursday, May 26.
“The first message was a threat to her specifically, but also said they were going to shoot up the school,” Munden said. “We responded and talked to school officials, but it was very vague and there was no identification.”
Munden said Blaine Police answered with what he called a “soft response,” sending more officers to the schools and parking more patrol vehicles where they would be visible outside the main campus.
“Not long after that, close to about an hour or so later, the second message said he was on campus and he was looking to kill her,” Munden said. “It seemed to have more detail to point out where he was at in Blaine.”
The text messages have not yet led investigators to the identity of the person who sent them, Munden said. The messages came through a voice-to-internet service, according to Munden, and they have been tracked to a city in Alabama, but not a specific address.
After the second text was received, the main campus, which includes the district’s elementary, middle and high schools, was placed on lockdown, and Blaine Police reached out for mutual aid from the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Border Patrol, Munden said.
The school district first reported the lockdown via social media at 2:40 p.m., and parents and families were told not to approach the main campus or call the schools during the lockdown. Posts also asked anyone waiting to pick up students to leave the area.
While the campus was in lockdown, several rumors emerged on social media, all of which were debunked by Munden.
“Those were all just rumors,” Munden said. “We have traced most of those back to one person on Facebook. We never contacted a suspect at the school. We never found a gun on campus. Someone said they heard a taser being fired — none of that happened.
“The only thing that may have happened is that while we were searching the campus, we found some kids in an area out where they shouldn’t have been, and people may have heard some yelling at them to get where they belonged, but nobody was led out of the school at gunpoint.”
At approximately 5:45 p.m., after law enforcement had cleared the schools, Munden said police and school district officials determined it was safe to begin releasing students to waiting parents.
Most students were moved to the football stadium outside the high school so that the release could be controlled to confirm students went home with their parents or guardians.
“It was a little hectic at first, but that’s because it’s something that’s never been practiced like that,” Munden said, “and things smoothed out pretty quickly.”
The entire process took about 90 minutes, Munden estimated, and any students whose parents could not pick them up at the school, were bused home using normal bus routes.
The school district later announced that classes at all Blaine schools would be canceled Thursday.
“One of the reasons for canceling classes, from what I understand, is to give the kids a chance to decompress,” Munden said. “It was pretty stressful for them yesterday. Canceling allowed them time to go home and for the schools to arrange to bring in counselors when they come back for any kids that need it.”
The district posted Thursday evening on its website that there would be no school Friday, May 27. “The district will be submitting a waiver to OSPI to avoid the need to make up this week’s missed instructional days, and we expect it will be approved,” it added.
“When talking to your kids about yesterday’s events, one of the most important things you can do is stick to the facts and avoid rumor and conjecture,” the district’s website stated. “We cannot overemphasize the facts in this incident; no one was found on campus who intended to do harm to students and no weapon was found on campus.”
The response to Wednesday’s incident in Blaine was certainly impacted by the school shooting that happened 24 hours and 2,200 miles away in Texas on Tuesday, Munden said.
“We talked about it on our own, within the police department,” Munden told The Herald. “I’m not sure how the school feels about it, but we definitely defaulted to a more cautious posture than we might have, based on the info we had.
“We’re simply not willing to take any chances these days. With that so fresh, as it was, we were worried about a copycat, and we definitely did take that into account.”
According to the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Blaine School was home to 2,323 students in 2021 — 1,089 elementary students, 540 middle school students and 694 high school students.
This story was originally published May 26, 2022 at 11:04 AM.
