SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nationwide threats posted against schools on social media put multiple schools in the Sacramento area on high alert — and at least one into a lockdown. One of the schools specifically mentioned was Inderkum High School.
But the district said all school events will continue as planned, including Friday night football.
For father Alexis Bonzon, he was glad the games weren’t cancelled and said it’s important to have that sense of regularity.
“I was really concerned at the beginning, but my son is a senior. We’ve been through this before, and I felt safe and just trust the system,” Bonzon said.
Natomas Unified School District tried to make everyone feel safe with increased security at all home football games following a shelter-in-place Friday afternoon at Inderkum. The call to shelter-in-place was due to a false threat on social media.
Besides the nationwide social media schools threats, Natomas Unified said they received an additional specific threat mid-morning that mentioned Inderkum. No other school in the district was mentioned.
Around noon, the district said the shelter-in-place was lifted and connected the false threats to ones being made in the region and nationwide.
Cherita was in the stands Friday night to watch her granddaughter cheer.
“I’m still very unsettled, because we really don’t know where we are at with safety across the country. So for me, it’s just everyday discussing with my granddaughter when I drop her off for her security if she hears something, sees something she goes and tells a teacher,” Cherita said.
That is what the Natomas Unified School Districts is asking for families to do.
Deidre Powell, the executive director for communications at Natomas Unified, said rumors and misinformation can be incredibly harmful to students, staff and parents. They can also cause increased anxiety.
“What we are asking is for our parents to really, really talk to their children about proper and appropriate social media use,” Powell said.
Powell also wanted to remind families that there is the "See something, Say something" link on the Inderkum school website. This is where people can anonymously report information.
Due to the issue being a nationwide trend, the FBI is involved. They released the following statement to ABC10.
“The FBI takes potential hoax threats very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk. We work closely with our law enforcement partners to determine their credibility, share information, and take appropriate investigative action. As always, we encourage members of the public to remain vigilant and immediately report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement.”
With the threats circulating on social media, SnapChat released a statement as well.
"Protecting the safety and well-being of young people on Snapchat is a top priority, and this type of activity has no place on Snapchat. We are actively looking into these reports, and will continue to work closely with law enforcement to support their investigations and strengthen our work to prevent abuse of our platform. We also encourage our community to report this type of content to law enforcement directly and through our reporting tools.
In addition to supporting valid requests from law enforcement, our Safety Operations team works to proactively escalate any content involving imminent threats to life, such as school shooting threats, bomb threats, and missing persons cases.”
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said he and Cal OES are aware of these incidents and are staying in contact with local law enforcement.
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