Princeton High School Under High Alert After Social Media Threat
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PLANO (CBS 11 NEWS) - Some Princeton ISD parents say they're furious about the way the district communicated details of a shooting threat.
School officials say metal detectors will not be back at the school Thursday, after students were forced to walk through them Wednesday. A spokesperson for the district says they will continue to have an increased police presence as a precaution, but not to the extent they had Wednesday. Nonetheless, some parents we met aren't so sure things are back to normal.
It wasn't until right after she had already dropped off her children at Princeton High School, that Nichole Leach says she found out from Facebook about the threat of a school shooting. She immediately took the day off from work and went back to the school to get her kids.
"You know, you hear every day about school shootings and kids just flipping out and whatnot. Is this what's happening here? Do they know? Do they not know?" Leach said.
Investigators say the suspect, an underage student from nearby Farmersville High School posted the threat of a school shooting on the mobile app, Burnbook along with a photo of himself. Police took him into custody overnight, but added extra officers and metal detectors at Princeton High School as a precaution.
"There were people crying wanting to know why they couldn't leave. People weren't letting them leave," Princeton High School freshman Crystal Shaddox said.
Shaddox was allowed to go home when her mom, Nicole Leach, came back to pick her up. Leach says she's angry that she had to find out details about the investigation from the media, and she wishes the school would call parents about situations like these. School officials insist students were never in any danger, and say they also risk criticism for releasing too much information and causing panic, but that's exactly what Leach felt without more details.
"I am not going to take any chances and allow my kids to be in harm's way of a random person coming up and hurting them. I would rather just keep them home, and them be safe," Leach said.
Investigators are releasing little information about the juvenile suspect. School officials tell me they did see a drop in attendance today. A spokesperson did not have specific numbers but said the drop was not significant, and they hope levels will be back to normal by Thursday.
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