Upper Darby School District Superintendent Daniel P. McGarry reported that a bomb threat at Upper Darby High School resulted in an evacuation near the time of dismissal on Friday afternoon.
A portion of southbound Lansdowne Avenue was closed off, and traffic crawled along South State Road, exacerbated by an earlier, unrelated fire on the 700 block of Fairfax Avenue near Arlington Cemetery.
There was also a disturbance outside the nearby Starbucks as thousands of students came down from the high school to that area at once, but Police Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt said it was nothing serious and was quickly broken up.
McGarry said in a release to the community that police contacted him Friday afternoon to report that they received an anonymous tip about a bomb and that someone with a weapon was outside the high school.
“Upper Darby Police informed me that we were not to go into an emergency response at that time,” McGarry said. “Upper Darby Police sent over support to check and clear the campus outside of the building.”
Bernhardt said the threat was made about 12:30 or 1 p.m. that there was a bomb or multiple bombs, as well as a male standing outside of the school with a gun ready to open fire.
He said he sent his officers to the area and deployed drones, but they were unable to see anything out of the ordinary and school officials said nothing was out of place either.
Once officers cleared the area outside the high school building, McGarry said police on scene decided to evacuate the school out of an abundance of caution. Once fully evacuated, K-9 units from multiple jurisdictions went floor-by-floor, clearing the building. They found nothing, Bernhardt said.
“I am sorry this happened to our high school today,” McGarry said. “I understand that incidents like these cause distress to students, families, and staff. I am grateful for the support we received from the Upper Darby Police Department and all other responding officers.”
McGarry added that he is proud of the administration, staff and students there, who cooperated so well during the police response, and parents and guardians who stayed away and allowed police to do their jobs.
Bernhardt also noted his officers were in constant contact with the administration, and he appreciated the tremendous cooperation they always received from officials there.
He said the investigation remains open and ongoing into who made the threat, and police are working on tracking that person down.
McGarry said support will be made available to staff or students who need to talk about the day’s events. A football game scheduled for Friday night at the high school was also reportedly canceled.