Salem Middle School will be on heightened security on Wednesday after anonymous threats were made this evening on social media.
According to Salem Middle School Counselor Blair Thompson, Salem City Police will be on heightened security inside the school with Washington County Sheriff’s Deputies on duty outside of the school.
Thompson said the threat has only been made against SMS students and that the school will operate as normal on Wednesday.
According to a call sent to parents of Salem School students this evening at 10p, an anonymous person through Snapchat and Instagram has made threats of shooting against students of Salem.
The call notes “We do not know how credible this threat is, however, we must take all threats seriously. Security will be heightened tomorrow and we are working with police to try to identify this person or persons.”
According to Salem Schools Superintendent DL Reed, two different social media messages came across on Tuesday — one involving an Instagram photo of a clown standing behind a sign at the Bradie M. Shrum Elementary School and the other a threat to shoot students at the Salem Middle School.
“We’ve got some threats that have been made on social media against students at Salem Middle School for tomorrow,” said Reed. “There’s a picture of a clown outside Bradie Shrum’s sign. Weird stuff is going on with this and clowns. Another picture was posted from over at Scottsburg school.”
Reed said a threat mentioned that clowns would be coming into the Salem Middle School tomorrow and shooting kids.
“Police are involved,” said Reed. “I got the information first hand from Salem Resource Officer Carey Cook. He’s notified the other police. We will have increased security at SMS. Ray Oppel, Jennifer Lawyer and Blair Thompson are at SMS [Tuesday night]. We’re going to do an ALL-Call…we don’t know how credible it is. We have to assume it might be real. So we’re going to follow our emergency protocol. ”
Reed said parents should use their own judgement on sending students to school on Wednesday.
Thompson said, “We take every threat seriously. We live in today’s society. Ten years ago, if a kid made a threat against someone, we might not take it seriously. But today, it’s something we have to take very seriously. We will have officers in the building and officers outside the building on Wednesday. We never know how safe we are, but we’ll be on a heightened alert on Wednesday.”
Thompson said local police were far along on the investigation and would hopefully have information on Wednesday.
According to Salem Police Officer Tim Miller, officers will be in full uniform at the school on Wednesday as well as officers in plain clothing.
