On Wednesday, February 21 a Snapchat threat to Westside High School was received by Westside administration. In response to the threat, administration contacted the Omaha Police Department who then contacted the student that night. The student, who will remain anonymous, told police that he posted the threat based on rumors he heard and just wanted to warn other people. According to Westside Communications Director Brandi Petersen, the student will receive no form of punishment.
After receiving the threat principal Jay Opperman worked with Omaha police to try to find where the rumors originated. After investigating, no evidence proving that the rumors were true was found. Because of this, the decision was made that it was still safe to attend school on Thursday, February 22.
“We know you’re safe [at school],” Peterson said. “When we didn’t have any evidence of a threat or any safety risk to our students, we made the call to keep you in school.”
The school still took extra precautions to ensure the safety of all students. Officer Jeff Kilgore called for additional help from the OPD the day after the threat. These officers stayed at school until it was certain that there was still no threat.
According to Peterson, the Westside administration found out about the threat through dozens of calls, emails, and text messages from students and parents reporting the Snapchat post.
“[Administration wants] to hear about these things, so even if you have a concern that [ends up being] nothing, we want to learn about it so we can contact Omaha police and find that out” Peterson said.
When a threat arises, school procedure is to immediately contact the police.
“If it involves any type of threat we turn things over to [the Omaha Police Department] and help them in any way we can [to] try to figure out who that person may be that posted it, [and] what we know about them,” Peterson said. “These are incredible professionals that immediately jump in and that’s why we turn it over to [them]. That’s their job. They’re experts in that field and they ultimately make sure we’re safe.”
After this most recent threat and a rise of threats occurring around the country, Westside is working to make it easier and more accessible for people to report any danger to the district.
“We want you to get in touch with us. We are working right now on our homepage of our website to put a ‘Contact Us’ button to make it as easy as possible to do that,” Peterson said.
