The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

TONE
We want to hear your voice!

Which school event do you most look forward to this year?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Bomb threat evacuates Paly

The Palo Alto Police Department is searching for the identity of an anonymous caller who contacted police at approximately 10 a.m. Monday morning, alleging that a bomb was about to go off on the Paly campus.

According to PAPD School Resource Officer Tom Pohl, police traced the call to Town & Country Village, the shopping center across the street from Paly’s campus. Minutes after police received the call, they contacted Principal Scott Laurence, who immediately notified the school via the intercom system, calling students to evacuate to the football field. "This is not a drill," he said.

This evacuation was the third use of the school’s new emergency plan in the past three months, and as students filed out of their classrooms, they were skeptical of the seriousness of the situation.

Burton Cohen, the district’s director of secondary education, arrived promptly on the scene to meet with Laurence.

"These are things which do happen at schools," Cohen said. "And that’s why you have procedures in place … to protect people."

According to Laurence, standard bomb threat procedure calls for complete evacuation of all buildings to an evacuation point, which is usually an open area, while security searches the campus. It does depend, however, on the severity of the threat.

"You don’t always evacuate," Laurence said. "You have to give an assessment of what you think the risk is, and since it [the threat] went through PAPD, it triggers a response from them and from us."

Paly’s response, in addition to vacating the buildings, was to send security personnel to look under desks and in bathrooms and garbage cans for suspicious packages or items that seemed out of place, according to campus supervisor Scott Reese.

"We focused our search based on something that admin had rumblings of," said Agent Tammela Gage of the Palo Alto Police Department. "For example the administration offices, student center, and library are all assumed targets."

While administrators made sure that all students were at the evacuation point, construction workers at the pool construction site were left in the dark.

"I just found out about it a minute ago," said foreman Scott Stowers, an employee of Western Water Features, the company commissioned to construct the new pool. "Had I known [earlier], for certain, I’d have left campus." Stowers was interviewed shortly after students were instructed to return to class.

Due to widespread confusion over the cause of the evacuation and the speed with which police declared the campus "clear" of any bombs, many students and staff members questioned the effectiveness of the emergency plan in event of a genuine threat.

"I think that if it was an act of terrorism then we all would’ve died," junior Becca Chacko said.

Other than a few police officers, no other emergency departments were called.

"It has to be some sort of prank call," junior Inez Feltscher said. "Otherwise they’d have the fire department or natural disaster crews or something."

According to Pohl, both the school and police took the threat very seriously, but the likelihood that a bombing would actually occur seemed low.

"Ninety nine point nine percent of the time these threats are bogus," Pohl said.

The most recent instance of a bomb threat in the district was at Jordan Middle School in 2002, when a vaguely worded threat was found in the boys’ bathroom, according to an article published in the Palo Alto Weekly on Dec 4, 2002. After police investigation, the threat was said to impose no actual danger.

To most members of the Paly community, the very idea of someone actually bombing a school is absurd.

"I can’t imagine that someone would have planted a bomb," long-term subsitute teacher Jüri Vilms said. "That would be unthinkable. There doesn’t seem to be enough issues [at Paly]."

Currently, the audio recording of the voice that called the Police Department this morning is being passed around campus to see if it can be identified.

"All we know is that it was a younger voice," Laurence said.

According to Pohl, the Paly administration has gotten a few leads as to who the suspect might be, but is still looking for information.

Anonymous tips can be called in to Officer Pohl at the non-emergency police line: 650-329-2637

"We won’t trace any calls," Pohl said.

The following reporters contributed to this story: Elena Marinelli and Dominic Littleton.

Leave a Comment

Comments (0)

All The Paly Voice Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *