ALLENTOWN, Pa. – William Allen High School received a bomb threat for the third day in a row Thursday, prompting the school\u2019s evacuation, Allentown School District spokesperson Melissa Reese said.<\/p>\n
The situation has grown increasingly frustrating for parents, students, and faculty, as bomb threats have been called in this week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and again late Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
The city held a news conference at the Allentown Schools Administration Building Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n
School and City officials joined with Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Houlihan to announce the arrests of three juveniles for two of those bomb scares from Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Houlihan announced the arrest of a 16-year-old in connection with Tuesday’s bomb scare, and the arrest of a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old in connection with Wednesday’s bomb scare.<\/p>\n
Houlihan said the arrests were a mix of juveniles who were inside and outside of the school district.<\/p>\n
The school continues to work with the Allentown Police Department to identify the person who made the threat Thursday and will pursue all appropriate legal action to ensure the person is held accountable to the fullest extent of the law, the district said in its\u00a0message to parents.<\/p>\n
All 2,700 students were evacuated Thursday morning before being allowed to return to the building, but it comes at the expense of another day of compromised learning, as well as a financial cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cA response to a bomb threat requires a lot of resources. I\u2019m talking police, fire, EMS, and additional K-9s from other jurisdictions to help us clear a building that\u2019s as large as Allen High School,\u201d said Chief Charles Roca with Allentown Police.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is impactful. It is creating a situation from a false bomb threat to put officers in harm\u2019s way, or even people that may be on scene,\u201d Roca added.<\/p>\n
“Our students are saying to us that this is very frustrating. They\u2019re very sad. They want to learn. They don’t want people to believe their school is unsafe, and they want their peers to stop it,” said Dr. Carol Birks, Allentown School Superintendent.<\/p>\n
DA Houlihan says all three juveniles will be charged with making terroristic threats, which is a felony, and could require financial restitution.<\/p>\n
School leaders have worked with the Allentown Fire Department and the Allentown Police Department to thoroughly investigate and have determined that there is no ongoing threat to the school community,\u00a0the district said Thursday in a message to parents.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Allentown Police Department said\u00a0anyone with information should call the Criminal Investigations Division at 610-437-7721.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis school year, the Allentown School District has experienced multiple incidents in which students have made false threats, resulting in significant disruptions to learning and distress across our schools. These incidents have diverted valuable time, attention, and resources away from learning and teaching, impacting students, families, and staff throughout our community,\u201d the district said in its message to parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Allentown School District will not tolerate any threat, whether verbal, written, electronic, or shared through social media, that disrupts the learning environment or endangers the safety of our schools. We encourage you to review the Pennsylvania law, the Allentown School District\u2019s policy, Terroristic Threats, and the Allentown School District\u2019s Code of Conduct with your child.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – William Allen High School received a bomb threat for the third day in a row…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,719,28006,24800,31,710,740,1856,28,206,114284,3676,10208],"class_list":["post-312386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-school-district","tag-bomb","tag-bomb-threat","tag-crime","tag-crimes","tag-justice","tag-law-enforcement","tag-pennsylvania","tag-police","tag-school-evacuation","tag-student-safety","tag-william-allen-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}