Feature Photo By: Peter Vo – Students approach one of the many officers on duty during lunch. Many students still have questions regarding the situation.
The atmosphere was intense, the chatter was unusually loud and the halls were somewhat empty. Yesterday, a picture of a threat towards the school was being spread around social media.
It is unsure when the threat was first written down. It was found in the boy’s restroom in front of the gym.
“You will all pay Dec. 13 2017,” the threat said.
It is still unclear as to who did it, yet the Aurora Police Department and Rangeview administration deemed the threat not credible, according to communication with parents.
“The threats aren’t credible,” said senior Nadya Nfaoui. “People use it as an excuse to not come to school. The halls are empty, but not because people are scared.”
Throughout the day, there have been extra officers walking around, especially during lunch. During B lunch there was a bit of commotion that startled students, but there was no actual threat, witnesses said.
“I really didn’t hear about the threat,” stated senior Zavier Richmond. “I think it’s just bluff, they’re really not going to do anything.”
There have also been teachers guarding the doors, making sure students only go through the main office and have an ID. There are tables blocking the doors along with the teacher that is assigned to watch for monitoring.
“I think it tooks us by surprise but I feel like we’ve had threats before that and it’s never went through; this one wasn’t very credible,” said progress monitor Enrique Gonzalez. “You always gotta be prepared for these things cause you just never know, right. It can happen anywhere anytime. As for us kind of posting around with the table and teachers helping out, it shows that we care for students and everybody else.”
That said, some students feel negatively about the tables blocking the doors.
“So you mean to tell me that they have a threat from inside the school and they have tables in front of the doors? They’re locking us in the school with the threat,” said senior Taya Nickelson.
Many classrooms are only half full, and there is more space in the hallways as many students stayed home or were pulled out of class once their parents received the call regarding the situation.
“It doesn’t matter if this threat was a joke or not — I don’t want to die anytime soon,” said sophomore Rahwa Desta who stayed at home.
There have been threats throughout the years at Rangeview, surely more than one a year, some staff said, and it is likely to happen again.
It remains to be seen if the beefed up security will continue.
“It’s important to keep our students safe,” said student service teacher, Carrie Gorman.. “We don’t know much about the threats but we’ll do extra duty to keep our students safe.”
When students feel unsafe, they are told to contact Safe2Tell, which is a resource open for all sorts of threatening situations. Students are able to contact them anonymously at 1-877-542-7233.
Review staff Mya Johnson, Dominique Harlan, and Peter Vo contributed to this report.
