A 14-year-old Tarkington High School student is facing a state jail felony charge after allegedly making a bomb threat on Monday, Dec. 9. According to Pct. 5 Constable David Hunter, the incident began when the student, described as a straight-A student, typed “I have a bomb” or “I’ve got a bomb” into a Google search window on a school computer.
The search triggered an immediate alert to Tarkington ISD’s IT staff, who then notified law enforcement.
“The situation escalated from there with multiple law enforcement officers descending on the school,” Hunter explained. K-9 units were brought in to search the campus, though no explosives were found.
Hunter said the student appeared to be bored after completing testing in his classroom and made “a regrettable decision” to type the statement into the search window. After being taken into custody, the student was taken to Pct. 5 Justice of the Peace Wade Brown before being released to his parents.
“This is a state jail felony charge,” said Hunter, emphasizing the seriousness of the incident. “Talk to your kids and educate them. Explain to them about the times we are living in and where and when they shouldn’t say such things. It has to start at home. I don’t look forward to filing criminal charges on a child. They need to know you can’t take guns and knives into schools and other buildings, and you can’t get on a school computer and type in a bomb threat, or make a threat of any kind.”
In a statement, Tarkington ISD Superintendent Dr. Elna Davis addressed the situation and detailed the district’s swift response to ensure student safety.
“This morning we discovered a bomb threat message at Tarkington High School on one of the computers. Safety protocols were immediately initiated, which involved district and campus administration, district police, constables, and state troopers. We promptly evacuated students and staff, and conducted a detailed security sweep to prepare the students to safely return to campus. No bomb was found on campus. The student responsible for the threat was taken into custody,” Davis wrote in her notice to parents and guardians.
Dr. Davis added, “Schools across the nation have been dealing with students making false bomb and weapon threats in an effort to disrupt the learning environment; we are not immune from this activity here at Tarkington ISD. In Texas, making threats such as this is a felony offense. Please take time to discuss with your children how the choices they make can have unintended consequences and how poor choices can lead to serious school disciplinary consequences as well as criminal charges. An action taken in a few minutes without much thought can be regretted and have consequences far longer.”
The incident disrupted the school day, requiring an evacuation of students and staff, and led to a heightened police presence on campus.
“The individual responsible disrupted our learning environment, caused a great inconvenience to many, diverted authorities from other important work, and caused our community to be in fear for the well-being of their children,” Dr. Davis said. “The safety and security of all students are of the utmost importance to TISD, and we will continue to work together with you to ensure our campuses and community stay safe.”
We need school districts administrators to not be stupid.
You would not have made that comment if the school ignored it and something had really happened. Two sides to a book. Better safe than sorry. .
Wow really a Google search…. no message sent to anyone… how is that a threat. You’re going to ruin a straight A students life over a search. Can we say police state we live in now.
Tm You can be a straight A student and still not be on the special list. Like you said no message sent to anyone and didn’t say what he was going to do with it if anything. But you can blow up those targets on pipeline ROWs that’s ok.
And yet, had they done nothing and something happened it would be the schools fault .
Play stupid games and you win stupid prizes.
Maybe the IT department should not have the student’s school computers setup to use GOOGLE or any other search engine other then one created specifically for the school. This way nothing but school information can be looked up. Not Tick tock or bomb information or just random things when a child is bored after taking a test. They should not have the ability to use the computer to look up things that do not pertain to anything they are being taught at school. Read a book, do your home work, study…. but they have computers in there face so they will look up and watch other things not pertaining to school because it is made available to them. My oldest son is a 17 year old senior at THS and my other son 12 years old TMS. I was worried for both my kids yesterday. The sad thing is, that this kind of thing is so normal to are children that when I asked my son when he got home if he was ok or wanted to talk he said ” it happens all the time mom I’m fine” That makes me sad. A program should be developed for the school to have there own search engine or something similar to what I’m talking about to keep them safe mentality and physically.