Randolph Police said they don’t anticipate bringing charges after a threat made by a middle school student forced the closing of the five schools in the Orange Southwest School District.
Late Monday night the Randolph Police department received information from a parent of a possible threat of violence made toward an area school.
According to a press release sent by the department, a student had reported to the parent that another student had said they were going to "shoot up the school tomorrow."
Police say the threat was made after an altercation between two middle school students.
"At this time we do not believe any action will take place," the police said in their morning press release, "but out of an abundance of caution the schools will remain closed and locked until Wednesday, May 23rd."
Randolph Police Chief Daniel Brunelle said it’s possible the comment was made in the heat of the moment, but authorities had to take it seriously and investigate.
"We were able to speak with the juvenile and do a risk assessment and threat assessment of where the child lived,” Brunelle said Tuesday, “and — to the parents credit — there were firearms in the home, they were all secured and there was no way that any of the children in the home could have had access to them."
Brunelle said uniformed police were posted at all of the district’s schools for two hours this morning. The schools will reopen Wednesday.
The school district will also conduct its own inquiry.
Update 11:46 a.m. This post was updated to provide further information from Brunelle, and to correct the full name of the district in the post and headline (it previously stated Orange South Supervisory District, per the police press release).
