High School Threat In Omaha
September 23, 2008 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
Omaha police have arrested a 14-year-old boy for a crime that has become, unfortunately, all too familiar: Making a terroristic threat against classmates.
Police took the North High freshman out of class Monday. It has not been revealed how many students the teenager planned to hurt or how he planned to carry out his threat — but some clues led parents and students to take action.
Police will say the teen used a computer to threaten to shoot other students and himself. Some parents and students found out about the threats and alerted authorities Sunday night. Their action led police to arrest the student.
The news came as a shock to parents and students. Many at Monday night’s North High School softball game did not know about the incident until Channel 6 News told them about it. They are thankful that those who knew about the threat did the right thing by going directly to authorities
Alan Whicken, an Omaha North parent said, “It’s scary you know, like we were talking, you don’t know if it’s something personal or it’s a copycat or what’s going on.” Wendy Forrest, another Omaha North parent said, “I’m glad somebody spoke up and let officials know and so that he could get the help he needs so he doesn’t hurt himself of somebody else.”
Police have removed firearms from the boy’s home — for safe keeping. The boy did not have any weapon with him when police arrested him at school.
The last name “Whicken” is spelled incorrectly. That is my friend, on the softball team’s, father. There were two unofficial targets. One was my friend, and the other was myself. I’m not sure if that counts, since he was supposedly kidding. In the “serious” threat though, he didn’t give any names.
Sorry kids. There are some things that people just have to learn cannot be spoken in jest. Just as one cannot joke about having a bomb in their suitcase at an airport, one also cannot joke about taking lives in a school. Some people are slow learners, but any threat must be treated as if it is a real threat until it can be PROVEN that it is not real.