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Jamie Lozada-McBride, a 15-year-old sophomore at Montgomery Blair High School, was in his journalism class earlier this week when news of the latest bomb threat emerged.
There was “an event in the community,” he recalled hearing over the PA system, “that required a greater level of security.”
First, students were told to stay in their classrooms. Then they were ushered outside to the stadium bleachers so police could sweep through the school. Outside, as Jamie and others hung out and scrolled through TikTok, they again found themselves working their way through fear to normalcy.
“It was just kind of scary how mundane it all was,” Jamie said.
And it was all caused, police said Wednesday, by a 12-year-old. The youth emailed bomb threats targeting Blair five times from Oct. 13 through Tuesday, according to authorities.
“This reckless and dangerous behavior” caused “fear and chaos,” Montgomery Police Chief Marcus Jones said in a statement Wednesday.
Under Maryland law, the 12-year-old cannot be charged in the case because children under 13 can only be charged with offenses that constitute a “crime of violence,” Jones noted.
“It is disheartening to accept that the individual responsible for disrupting the educational process and instilling fear in our community was well aware of the legal limitations surrounding their age,” the chief added. “They understood that they could not be charged under current Maryland statutes.”
Jones said the child admitted to his involvement in seven emailed bomb threats: five at Blair and two more on Oct. 15 that targeted Oak View Elementary School and Silver Spring International Middle School.
Jones said his detectives worked with school system IT staffers to identify the 12-year-old.
In addition to those seven cases, police in Montgomery County are probing three more bomb threats targeting schools: Rockville High on Monday, Albert Einstein High on Wednesday and Springbrook High on Wednesday. It was unclear if investigators had identified a suspect in those incidents.
No explosives were found from any of the threats.
But each has left an impact. Parents received jolts of fear, dozens of officers were pulled from other duties, and students — who have maneuvered through a life defined by tragic school shootings and active-shooter drills — once again were told they could be in danger.
“We want to treat every one of these as absolutely real,” said Capt. Jordan Satinsky, director of the Montgomery County Police Department’s Community Engagement Division. “Is responding to fake calls taxing on everyone? Yes. But we don’t really have a choice.”
Satinsky estimates that in work hours alone, Montgomery police have spent well more than $20,000 responding to the threats countywide since Oct. 13. That includes officers who go into schools with explosive-sniffing dogs and others who make sure schools are cleared and stay that way. A typical response, Satinsky said, is 15 officers. “Those are cops who can’t be sent to other emergencies,” he said.
Around the nation, the number of bomb threats targeting schools is increasing, and the vast majority turn out unfounded, said Kenneth S. Trump, president of the Cleveland-based consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services. He has helped schools develop safety plans for more than 30 years.
The threats generally come from two categories: Local sources, such as students or former students of a particular schools with a grievance; or “swatting” threats that can originate from out of state or out of the country and are sent digitally to schools or police departments.
