Schools on alert after shooting threats found in Beaufort, Bluffton school bathrooms
Bluffton police said Thursday afternoon there is no credible threat of a school shooting after threatening graffiti was found posted in a bathroom at H.E. McCracken Middle School.
H.E. McCracken was one of four Beaufort County schools where graffiti was found in the bathrooms warning of school shootings, putting the district on high alert. The other schools were Beaufort High, Beaufort Middle and Bluffton Middle.
At H.E. McCracken, the graffiti said, “Someone is going to shoot up the school on the 10th.”
At Beaufort High, there were two messages: One on Wednesday read, “Don’t come to skool on the 13th,” and one on Thursday read, “Warning!!! Dec. 13th DO NOT Come to School. There will be 6 kids that will shoot up the school. You have been warned.”
And two more messages were found Thursday afternoon at Bluffton Middle and Beaufort Middle, with the former reading “Alert school shooting-7th” and the latter reading “Don’t come to school on the 10th if you wanna get shot.”
Bluffton police are sending portions of the graffiti writing from H.E. McCracken to the S.C. Law Enforcement Division for analysis, according to Lt. Christian Gonzales.
Gonzales said seven to eight officers will be at the school Friday for extra protection.
He would not say whether there are any suspects, but acknowledged the agency is looking at “some people of interest.”
“Once the conclusion’s done and there’s evidence that indicates [there are] people responsible, they will be charged,” Gonzales said.
The Beaufort Police Department is investigating the incident at Beaufort High School, according to a message to parents from Principal Charity Summers. That school also will have extra police officers on hand.
In a Wednesday night message to parents, H.E. McCracken principal Ryan Milling wrote that “there has been a recent prevalence of similar threatening messages being written on school bathroom walls across the nation.”
Similar messages have been reported in Georgia, Illinois, West Virginia, Texas and Kentucky schools in the past week, following a Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan that left four dead.
At least five weapons have been reported in Beaufort County schools this semester, including three firearms and a knife found in a Beaufort Elementary School bathroom earlier this week.
