Editorial: Violent school threats spread like epidemic
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Threats can be easily dismissed.
A threat, after all, is not the same thing as the act itself. Being threatened with a lawsuit is not the same as being sued. Threatening to call the police is not the same as picking up the phone.
A threat’s meaning has been diluted by all of the empty threats we receive — or issue — every day. “I’ll go over your head!” “I will talk to the manager!” “You are going to be grounded.”
The problem is that a real threat is not empty. It is full to overflowing with the reality of what comes next. A threatening sky promises and delivers rain. A final notice on a bill tends to follow through on the threat of collections. A drawn weapon is a threat no one wants to test.
And because threats can be the seismic shock waves that come before the earthquake, there are threats that simply cannot be ignored. That is why the law makes certain threats — like harassment or terroristic threats — illegal.
Why? Because today’s red flag can be tomorrow’s tragedy. On Tuesday, Ethan Crumbley’s parents attended a behavior conference with him at his school. The threat? A teacher found a picture he had drawn depicting a gun, a person bleeding and the words “help me.”
That points to another kind of threat. The cry for help. It wasn’t long after the meeting when Crumbley — who may have had the weapon in his possession at the meeting — opened fire on students in a hallway. Three died that day, one the next morning. Crumbley and his parents have been charged.
This is why events like the threats at schools are frequently treated as serious when they may just be misguided or maliciously empty. The schools or police have no way of knowing whether this bomb threat is real and that shooting threat is fake. That’s a mistake no one wants to make.
But these threats also become their own epidemic, contagious and easily spread. Pittsburgh Public Schools had a modified lockdown Friday after social media threats. McKeesport police are working with the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office after threats were made at both McKeesport and West Mifflin school districts, with a young girl admitting she made threats. Police say the threats weren’t credible.
Credible threats still cost districts money in terms of staff time, lost instruction, even lunches that get thrown away if school closes. Then there is the incalculable cost of fear in students, parents and the community. No sixth grader can know what goes through a parent’s mind when they hear there has been a threat of violence at their child’s school.
Threats are their own kind of action, and those actions have consequences. It is important for parents, schools and law enforcement to make it clear to kids that not only is it important to report threats to adults or via the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office Safe2SayPA.org website, but it is also just as important to not play games with such a devastating topic.