Mt. Ararat Middle School in Topsham went on alert for the second day in a row after bomb threats were made to the school this week.
These threats come during a wave of bomb threats Maine has been seeing lately — several Walgreens stores received bomb threats last month. A suspicious package was reported at the Topsham Walgreens the day after. No bombs or other threats were found.
The first bomb threat at Mt. Ararat, left on a staff member’s voicemail over the weekend, led to school being canceled Monday. That same day in Portland, an active shooter was falsely reported at Casco Bay High School, which caused an evacuation of the building.
School hadn’t started when the first bomb threat was found Monday, so all of the students were routed to the nearby high school. The Maine State Police bomb squad brought two K-9 units to search the school. Since it took a long time, school was canceled for that day, Topsham Police Chief Marc Hagan said.
Monday night, another bomb threat was left on the voicemail at Mt. Ararat Middle School, Hagan said. He thinks the calls are connected, but the investigation is still open. The school decided to not cancel school Tuesday, and sent a message to families about the situation.
“We take these threats very seriously, and in light of today’s events which led to a thorough search by the Maine State Police Bomb Squad and the Topsham Police Department, I feel that we can hold school tomorrow,” Interim Superintendent Heidi O’Leary said in the message.
Police presence remained heavy at both Mt. Ararat Middle School and Mt. Ararat High School both days, with Hagan saying bomb threats like these use up a lot of resources in his relatively small department.
“The school has a lot of resources and they should be teaching their kids, you know, and they’re trying to provide an education, and instead they’re dealing with this,” Hagan said.
The person calling in the bomb threats could be charged with terrorizing or false public alarm, both of which are punishable with up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
