Montgomery County police officer weighs in on school threats; what’s pushing it, what can be done
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now) — A Montgomery County Department of Police (MCPD) said so far in 2024, over 100 school threats have been made to the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) system but none were carried out.
Police said there have been about 140 school threats, which includes bomb threats and school shooting threats, during this school year alone. They say the threat calls happen almost weekly.
“When I first came to this job two years ago, that number would have blown me away but now it seems to be a pattern but not just with Montgomery County Public Schools,” Director of Montgomery County Department of Police’s Community Engagement Division, Capt. Jordan Satinsky, said. “It’s a systemic issue across schools at least in Maryland.”
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Satinsky said these threats cause major disruptions for police and students alike.
“Some of the times its students who want to get out class. They want to get out of an exam, something that was due. Other times it’s a dare and other times it’s just some folks, especially at the middle school to low end high school level, where they really can’t control themselves emotionally and they just lash out and make these threats and realize later on it was wrong ,” Satinsky said.
Satinsky said he takes no issue with students feeling upset about school.
“I think the big issue when you’re going to trigger something like this, you need to take a pause because a lot of things happen at that same time,” he added.
Satinsky said a lot of suspects in these school threats under the age of 13. He said he believes a recent law change in Maryland may have emboldened kids to make these threats.
On Wednesday, several bomb threats were made to some MCPS schools including Wooten High School. Additionally, last week, MCPD arrested a 18-year-old student, Alex Ye, who they said made threats to shoot up Wootton High School in a 129-page manifesto they had wrote.
DC News Now asked Satinsky about why it may seem that it takes some time between when a threat is made and when a person is found or arrested.
“We can’t just go out and because based on something you tell me, make an arrest. We have to go gather evidence. We have to work with our partners in different agencies,” Satinsky said. “All of those things take time and when we get that information, we have to comb through it to make sure we have the right person.”
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Satinsky said MCPD goes through certain steps to take when a bomb threat is made to a school.
“We’ll send one of the school resource officers to work with the principal of the school to determine the validity of that threat and between the information shared at that moment, [the principal] will make the decision on whether to evacuate the school or not. And that’s based on guidance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation when it came to school bomb threats,” Satinsky said.
“After that if we have to evacuate to make that area safe, we will bring in our bomb dogs, we will check that area and start back tracking from there to develop a potential suspect,” he added.
Satinsky said many kids who call in threats believe there aren’t consequences and they think a change in Maryland law may have a played a role.
“They [students] say we know nothing is going to happen to us,” Satinsky said. “Maryland state legislation changed the law about when we could arrest juvenile. Prior to the change, we were able to arrest juveniles all the way down till probably about eight, nine years old depending on what the crime was. They made a blanket across the board change to 13 with the exception of homicide, sexual assault and high-end aggravated assault.”
He said some students would bring guns to school, knowing officers could not do anything about it. Satinksy said he believes children need to be rehabilitated, but no programs were put in place when the law changed.
“If there was a way to have juvenile services and HHS [Health and Human Services] work in concert, I think that would be a lot better,” he added.
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DC News Now asked Satinsky if parents could help in tackling this problem.
“I just want parents to talk to their kids. I think that’s really the most important thing and just remind them of the consequences,” he said. “Having one of my folks show up at your door is not a great thing.”
MCPD created a unit in 2023 that specifically investigates school threats, according to Satinsky.
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