Bomb threats could damage recovery efforts at Marysville Pilchuck

Published 12:33 pm Thursday, January 15, 2015

MARYSVILLE — Bomb threats at Marysville Pilchuck High School this week may set back recovery efforts on a campus where four students were fatally shot by a classmate in October.

That’s the opinion of Mary Schoenfeldt, an expert in trauma response hired by the school district to lead the recovery efforts.

Police cleared the campus of students and staff after a 1:45 p.m. threat Wednesday. It was made as a robotic message to mask the caller’s real voice. Some students were taken to a nearby church for their parents to pick them up, similar to what happened after the Oct. 24 cafeteria shootings.

At least one news helicopter flew over the campus while events unfolded.

“The more reminders that there are, the more it tears off that very thin layer of healing,” Schoenfeldt said. “We don’t go back to ground zero, but it slows down the healing.”

Another bomb threat was made Thursday morning. It, too, was determined to be a hoax, Marysville School District Superintendent Becky Berg said in a recorded telephone message to parents.

The call came around 7:45 a.m., Marysville Police Department Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux said.

“The nature of the call was the same as yesterday’s threat in that the voice of the caller was electronic,” Lamoureux said. “This morning’s event, however, was specifically directed at law enforcement and not students and staff.”

Police again went to the campus to investigate.

A third threat was made around 11 a.m. Thursday at MPHS.

The threat indicated that there were 3 metric tons of dynamite in a truck in the parking lot with a 10-member team of Russian gunmen in the area, Lamoureux said.

All the threats are being investigated.

Anyone with information is asked to contact detectives at 425-363-8350.

The media response to Wednesday’s threat caught the attention of Montel Williams, best known as the host for a long-running television talk show that ended in 2008. In an op-ed sent to The Herald, he chided Seattle television stations for their response.

“I understand that a bomb threat at a school, much less this school, needs to be reported,” he wrote. “I do not think, however, that the need to inform the public justifies further frightening these kids by flooding the area with live trucks and flying helicopters over the location where frightened children are being reunited with their families.”

Frank DeAngelis, the retired principal at Columbine High School in Colorado where 12 students and a teacher were gunned down in 1999, shared his perspective in an interview shortly after the MPHS shootings.

Every time a helicopter flew over, “it brought us back to that day,” he said.

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com