Lafayette County Schools receive second “low-level” threat

Published 11:47 am Thursday, February 13, 2020

After discovering a threat written on a bathroom stall at Lafayette High School earlier this week, the Lafayette County School District received a second threat on Thursday morning.

Around 9:50 a.m. the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department was contacted by an official with the school district, stating that some of the students had been air-dropped a message that read, “I am going to bomb all the Lafayette Schools today. Be careful and watch your back.”

Deputies with the sheriff’s department arrived at the Lafayette County school campus and searched the perimeter of the high school with the assistance of the University Police Department’s explosive detection K-9, Oxford Police Department, faculty and staff.

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Once the entire area was searched and deemed safe for students to be allowed to leave, an all-clear was called. Classes resumed their regular schedule at all Lafayette County schools shortly before noon on Thursday.

The first threat, which said “I’m gonna shoot up this place,” with Thursday’s date written underneath it, was found by a student on Tuesday. The student took a photo of the threat, which written on a bathroom stall wall, to Lafayette High School principal Dr. Glenn Kitchens and Lafayette school superintendent Dr. Adam Pugh on Tuesday.

It is not known how long that threat had been written on the wall, but Pugh and the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department took precautionary measures to have an increased presence of law enforcement officers around Lafayette County schools for the remainder of the week.

The sheriff’s department, along with other local and federal agencies, are “aggressively investigating” the threats made over the past several days, according to release from the sheriff’s department. They ask anyone with information regarding the threats to contact the sheriff department’s Investigation Division at 662-234-6421.