School reports of more than 40 bomb threats at DPSCD and charter schools since Feb. 15, the day after the massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. indicate an alarming rise in school safety threats. Twenty-three of the 24 bomb threats to Detroit schools and students occurred within a 24-hour period from Thursday, March 23 through Friday, March 24.
As law enforcement officials and school personnel rushed to safely evacuate students, many were enraged by the callousness of the perpetrators, and vowed to determine the source of the threats and identify all parties involved in the domestic terrorist like intimidation tactics.
School officials began reporting the discovery of suspicious packages in classrooms and administrative offices on Thursday, March 23 and indicated that a number of the menacing alerts were received via email and social media.
Detroit police chief, James Craig said 34 of the 40 threats were gun-related, two were bomb threats and four insinuated both bomb and shooting risks.
“It’s going to end,” Craig said. “For the last several days we’ve received a growing number of threats made. Several school administrators were reaching directly out to me,” he said, warning, “Decisions you make as a child today can affect you for the rest of your life.”
Students at Southeastern High School on Detroit’s eastside expressed in a meeting with Michigan Chronicle staff, that while they regularly experience concern about potentially violent encounters on and off school grounds, they are more fearful about a controversial proposal to arm teachers, allowing staff to carry weapons in the classroom. “Not only do I have to worry about being shot by another kid, then I’ll have to worry about a mad teacher or one who doesn’t really know what they’re doing having a gun,” said one Southeastern senior. That sentiment was echoed by the majority of students participating in the open discussion, with another adding, “It just feels like the politicians and the police don’t care about how we feel or even how we live or die.”
Craig said the police department is planning to increase resources within its cybercrime unit to deal with the threats. “Many of the young people that are sending these threats, they believe they are sending in anonymous threats … We have the wherewithal to identify you. You need to stop. Schools are safe havens.”
In Detroit, a 17-year-old male, along with three juveniles — a 16-year-old boy and two 14-year-olds have been arrested in connection with the school violence threats. Officials said they could face charges of making a threat of terrorism.
“I view this as social terrorism because it creates social unrest,” Craig said. “Continue if you will, but we will be knocking on your door.”
Against a back drop of hundreds of thousands of students in cities and towns across the nation rallying to force legislators to take action and aggressively address violence in schools, throngs of demonstrating students gathered in Washington D.C. over the March 26 to March 28 weekend to protest social and political apathy in the wake of the more than 130 threats reported nationwide in a nine-day span.
While most have turned out to be vile pranks and false alarms, the anxiety students, parents and school staff are exposed to is having a lasting and profound impact on the educational process.
In Wayne County, a coalition comprised of Michigan’s top law enforcement and education groups met at a local school to share the latest proposals for preventing violence in the classroom. The Michigan School Safety Reform Plan is based on strategies that are effective and immediately achievable.
“On Monday, I spoke to students in the Government club at Communications Media and Arts High School on gun safety, bullying and trusting law … the students expressed to me the lack of trust, enforcement are a problem couragement and acceptance they have of those in uniform,” said Pageant B. Atterberry, Director of Communications in the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office. “They begged for more counselors and psychologist and wanted tips on how to help their peers who are battling with bullying and/or mental health.”
The Michigan School Safety Reform Plan calls for a new $100 million grant program for personnel, and a $20 million grant program for safety infrastructure, and other reforms, including:
• More school resource officers — sheriffs and police — working in school facilities through a new state grant program;
• More school mental health professionals to identify problems early through the same new state grant program;
• Grants to ensure safer buildings for students and teachers; and
• Mandatory reporting of threats and graduated penalties to help prevent violence.
“Help for the youth and them coming together [in] unity is essential in this time of shootings and bomb threats,” concluded Atterberry.
Michigan remains the site of the most deadly act of school violence in U.S. history when in May of 1927 a school bombing and truck explosion killed 38 children, just before the start of summer vacation.
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Joining the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign is part of the NAACP’s commitment to advocating for the Economic Sustainability – one of its six game changer issues. Affordable and inclusive housing has historically been a roadblock for many African-Americans on the path to financial growth, and present-day policies still fall short in closing the economic gap between Black Americans and their white counterparts.
The Opportunity Starts at Home campaign seeks to mobilize powerful new constituencies beyond housing to ensure that people with the lowest incomes have access to safe, decent, affordable housing in neighborhoods where everyone has equitable opportunities to thrive.
The long-term goals of the campaign are to promote federal policies that:
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The campaign will also act to defend against funding cuts and harmful policy changes in existing low income housing programs.
Opportunity Starts at Home is also working to strengthen the capacities of multi-sector state coalitions that share the campaign’s goals. The campaign has already issued capacity-building grants to partners in seven states: California, Idaho, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, and Utah.
Learn more about the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign at: www. OpportunityHome.org
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