Student arrested for making bomb threat

BY DANIELLE MEDINA
Correspondent

A 15-year-old Brick Township Memorial High School student was arrested Jan. 12 and charged with making a false public alarm three hours after she called in a bomb threat to the school, police said.

Shortly before 9 a.m., a school secretary received a phone call saying there was a bomb in the building. A detonation time was also given in the call, Principal William Anderson said.

“It was specific enough for us to play it safe and not sorry,” he said.

Students and faculty members were evacuated to the school’s bleachers at the football field, where they waited for two hours while police units and bomb sniffing dogs searched the building.

Many students were less than happy with the information they got during their time in the football stands.

“First they told us it was a drill. Then an hour later they told us it was a bomb threat,” said junior Brenda Slater, 17. “They wouldn’t let us move or get up. If you had to go to the bathroom, you couldn’t get back to your seat.”

Students were given only the information they needed to deal with the situation, Anderson said.

Despite having to wait out in the cold for two hours, most without their coats, the principal said students were well-behaved and followed directions.

The Brick Police Department and units from the Ocean, Monmouth, and Burlington county sheriff departments and the state Department of Corrections assisted in the search, Brick Lt. Doug Kinney said.

During the search, school buses and other vehicles were banned from entering and exiting the campus. Guidance counselors were stationed in front of the school, on Lanes Mill Road, to talk to any parents and members of the public who came to the school.

Students were allowed to re-enter the building around 11 a.m. after no bomb was found, Kinney said.

Brick police arrested the prank caller shortly before noon following an investigation by Detective Tim McCarthy, the school resource officer.

The call to the school came from a pay phone, but police would provide no further details.

The girl, whose name was not given because of her age, was released into her parents’ custody, Kinney said.

“This is a serious incident based on two levels,” Schools Superintendent Thomas L. Seidenberger said on Friday. “It was an inconvenience and a disruptive act. In this day and age, you really believe it’s an act of terrorism.”

The school and central administration will conduct its own investigation of the incident and the student will be given due process, Seidenberger said.

The student’s parents will have the right to an informal hearing, where they will be allowed make a statement and call witnesses.

Although in-school suspension or out-of-school suspension are possible forms of discipline that might be imposed, Seidenberger said expulsion is a “distinct possibility.”

“It is not uncommon for a superintendent to recommend expulsion to the Board of Education,” Seidenberger said. “This district has never shied away from firm and strong punishment.”