The Fairport Central School District superintendent says the district is seeking possible criminal charges for whoever is behind a violent threat targeting Fairport High School on Thursday.
A screenshot shared with WXXI News shows the threat was made via an Instagram story by an anonymous account that no longer exists.
Local and state law enforcement were on campus Thursday, superintendent Brett Provenzano said in a letter to families.
“District security teams were alert and vigilant at all of our facilities and worked hand-in-hand with officers to ensure the safety of our students and staff,” Provenzano said.
An ongoing investigation has revealed so far that the threat mimics a wave of other posts that have targeted schools around the country in recent weeks, and it appears to have been made by someone locally, Provenzano said.
“Due to the seriousness of this event and the disruption caused to our school environments, the district will enact consequences to the furthest possible extent and will work with investigators to seek criminal charges,” he said.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s office was alerted around 6:30 AM Thursday, Deputy Brendan Hurley said. While the district has said the threat was not credible, Hurley said law enforcement is treating it as though it is.
“How many hoaxes can you respond to before you start to, just in the back of your head go, ‘yeah, it's a bunch of nonsense’? But that'll be the time it's not,” Hurley said. “You always have to treat everything as if it's real until you can prove that it's not. But Murphy's Law will tell you it's that one time you don't take it serious, that that's when it's really going to happen.”
If it is an empty threat, it’s still a crime of false reporting, Hurley said, and it still takes a toll on the people whose sense of safety was compromised.
“That's still stress, that's still trauma on these students — and the faculty, going through all of this and wondering — and the parents too, right? ‘Am I sending my kid into this tragedy today?’” Hurley said. “ It's a huge experience for everybody, and just traumatic. So, we take it very serious.”
Even if a threat is made through an anonymous social media account that was later deleted, Hurley said it’s still possible to trace that and find the person who did it.
