MILL CREEK — A 17-year-old Henry M. Jackson High School student has been arrested for investigation of making bomb threats on the Mill Creek campus.
He was arrested after classes on Thursday afternoon and booked into the Denney Juvenile Justice Center in Everett, Mill Creek police Sgt. Ian Durkee said.
A bomb threat was left on the school’s voice mail Tuesday evening. Staff listened to it on Wednesday morning. In the message, the caller said there was a bomb in the school’s locker rooms. Police had the locker rooms and gym cleared while they searched.
That same afternoon, school staff answered a second telephone call. The caller said a bomb had been placed in the locker rooms. Again, the area was cleared and searched and nothing was found.
On Thursday, school employees listened to the voice mail and were able to identify a student they believed might have made the calls. Police then interviewed the teen who confessed to calling in two bomb threats to the school, Durkee said.
The student told investigators that the threats were a practical joke, Durkee said.
Police searched his home and found no signs of bomb-making materials.
The teen initially was released to his mother’s custody pending the filing of criminal charges, Durkee said.
However, about 90 minutes after he was interviewed by police, he allegedly called the school a third time to make a bomb threat, Durkee said.
That’s when he was arrested and booked into the youth center.
Everett School District spokeswoman Mary Waggoner said she could not discuss what disciplinary action is being taken against the student because of privacy laws.
However, in similar cases when students call in bomb threats, they receive what’s known as a temporary emergency expulsion that can be changed to a full expulsion when all the facts are known, Waggoner said.
“It was a costly mistake,” Waggoner said. “It made a lot of people anxious. You have to take them seriously every time “
Waggoner credited police investigators.
“The Mill Creek police were phenomenal,” she said. “They were all over it.”
Eric Stevick: stevick@heraldnet.com, 425-339-3446
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