AUGUSTA, Maine — In December 2014, an emailed threat closed Windham schools for three days. A 16-year-old student was charged with eight counts of terrorizing.
Days later, a bomb threat was called into Thornton Academy, forcing an evacuation and two-day closure. And in June, Cony High School ended its school year early after three bomb threats in one week.
In the 2014-2015 school year, bomb threats forced dozens of schools to evacuate and close in communities that also included Berwick, Sanford and Gray-New Gloucester. Now a district attorney is pushing for tougher laws to crack down on threats this year.
So far no one has been caught in connection with the bomb threats at Thornton Academy and Cony High School. Even if they had, and if the perpetrators were students, they’d likely get a suspension, the equivalent of slap on the wrist, Kennebec County District Attorney Maeghan Maloney said.
“We don’t have any teeth in the statute,” Maloney said.
After the threats at Cony High School, Augusta police approached Maloney about toughening Maine’s terrorizing laws to make them felonies, even for juveniles, she said.
“We want the consequences to be as severe as possible. We want to make sure people know that when they’re making these threats they’re going to be taken seriously,” Maloney said.
But Norma McDonough, who has grandchildren in school, said, “Oh, that’s a tough call with minors. It really is. Because we don’t know what kind of home environments they’re coming from.”
Maloney said the goal for students caught making bomb threats is not to lock them up, but to get them the help they need. Either way, she said it’s time to take these crimes seriously.
“This is not a joke. It’s not a joke to make these threats. It’s causing an enormous amount of financial damage. It’s causing damages to kids’ educations. And it’s causing a lot of problems,” Maloney said.
McDonough said children have “too much Internet access.”
“And it’s a plea for attention,” she said.