Published: 2/15/2023 5:45:18 PM
NORTHAMPTON — Students at Northampton High School briefly took shelter on Wednesday, as a recent string of hoax phone calls threatening school shootings across the state targeted the school and led to increased police presence at other schools in the region.
“There was a shelter in place today at the high school. Please know that everyone and everything is fine,” said Interim Superintendent Jannell Pearson-Campbell in a statement sent out to parents on Wednesday around noon. “The shelter in place was connected to the hoax threats that has plagued schools in Massachusetts since Monday.”
Other hoax threats were made to schools across the state on Wednesday, including in Ludlow, Milton and Natick. Those threats follow others on Monday and Tuesday, including at Greenfield High School, which led to an hourlong lockdown and increased police presence on Tuesday.
Calls threatening school shootings have been prevalent across the state since the start of the week, affecting all areas of the state. More than 15 schools in the state have been targeted by the hoax threats, according to the Boston Globe.
The threats also come in the wake of a school shooting that occurred at Michigan State University on Monday, as well as the five-year anniversary of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Tuesday.
In response to the threatened shooting, Massachusetts State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said in a statement that the threat to Northampton High was consistent with other threats called into the state earlier in the week.
“Our investigation into the hoax threats is ongoing. There have been no arrests,” Procopio said. “This is not unprecedented. We did see something like this a few years ago and at that time the suspicion was that they were originating overseas and the sources were using a sophisticated voice over IP network with multiple routers to conceal their true identity and spoof local numbers so the call appeared to be coming from the local area.”
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.