VWPD, school investigate gun threat

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

With the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings still way too fresh in everybody’s minds, Van Wert City School District officials weren’t taking any chances when a report of a gun threat was received early Wednesday morning.

Superintendent Ken Amstutz said Thursday that he learned from the Van Wert Police Department that police had received a text early Wednesday stating that a gun could be brought into a school building. The student who sent the text, and whose name has not been released at this time, was quickly brought in for questioning and admitted to writing the text, although he said he meant it as a joke.

“The individual is no longer in our district and is not considered to be a threat,” Amstutz said in a statement issued Thursday, and noted during a telephone interview that the student in question would be “dealt with”.

Police said the student who wrote the text, a 15-year-old boy who sent it to a 17-year-old male student, was evaluated by a mental health care facility and has been there since Wednesday for continued evaluation and/or treatment.

Meanwhile, a similar situation occurred on Thursday when a series of text messages were sent between VWHS and Vantage students at lunchtime yesterday stating that someone was threatening to bring a gun into the high school this morning.

The superintendent said, in light of the tragic circumstances that led to the deaths of 20 first-graders at the Newtown, Conn., school, his administration immediately took the threat seriously.

“During the afternoon, the situation was investigated by our administration and the VWPD and it was determined that the threat was not credible,” Amstutz said in the statement.

The VWCS superintendent added that there were also rumors in the community that a lockdown had been implemented in the high school-middle school complex, but stressed that was not the case. He did add, though, that Van Wert Elementary School students in grades 3-5 who were scheduled to come to the Niswonger Performing Arts Center to hear a lecture on Christmas legends by Ceci Wiselogel were kept in their own building to ensure their safety.

“With police in the building and not knowing exactly what the situation was at the high school, I contacted (VWES principals) Kevin (Gehres) and Beth (Runnion) and had them keep those students there,” Amstutz said.

The superintendent said that police officers were to be in all city school buildings today, but the snow and high winds changed that when it was decided to cancel classes for the day.

Amstutz said that he knows that similar threats will continue, especially in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, and urged students and their parents — an anyone else — who hears of such threats to report them either to school officials or to the police.

“No matter how trivial the threat, we need to know,” the superintendent said, adding that communication was critical in making sure local students remain safe. “Please rest assured that any information you give us will be investigated, with appropriate action taken.”