In this day and age, you can never be too safe

On Tuesday afternoon, Malta superintendent of schools Kris Kuehn was notified of a bomb threat at the high school. Kuehn said in a press release that the situation was significant enough to reflect a possible imminent threat to the students and staff and canceled school for Wednesday. That choice was the absolute correct one to make for the school and the community.

In this day and age, for a variety of reasons, threats like this can’t be viewed as pranks or April Fools jokes. They must be taken seriously. The mainstream media, almost daily it seems, reports on awful things happening to innocent people and a lot of the time these things are happening where our children go to school.

My hat’s off to Mr. Kuehn, Phillips County Sheriff Scott Moran and the entire sheriff’s office for how they are handling this potentially dangerous situation. The Staff here at the Phillips County News know that keeping the community informed is our top priority, but we also understand that investigations take time. There is an old, I think vile, saying in newsrooms: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Rest assured that the PCN doesn’t buy into that mantra, not a single bit. We will not report things until we are sure that the facts are 100-percent concrete. We might not always get it right, but we are always trying.

I received a news release from the United States Department of Justice on Saturday morning seeking information on 285 pounds of high explosives that were stolen from a storage facility west of Victor, Mont. This press release is all too timely and quite frightening. Someone wouldn’t need 285-pounds of explosives to kill and injure hundreds of people. Sadly, we witnessed that at the Boston Marathon bombing.

I don’t know what possesses someone to make a bomb threat in any community, but especially one this small and in one which seems so close knit. At the point of this writing, I know nothing about the suspect or suspects in the Malta High School threat. It is my ultimate hope that it was indeed just a stupid prank – which would make it the third in the past couple of years here in town.

On a certain social media site on Tuesday evening, someone started a thread asking about the bomb threat, trying to find out if the school had indeed been shut down for Wednesday. The thread started a debate by no less than 20 people. Some wanted the culprit, when caught, to face felony charges. Some mentioned prison time and losing their right to vote. Some people pointed the finger at today’s youth – the Millennials – and said that the entire lot of them are out of control and have no respect for this country or anyone but themselves. The other side of the coin where people of the mind that shutting the school down for the day was an overreaction, that “kids will be kids” and that it was all a harmless prank (as of Thursday morning, the thread had been taken down by the site’s admin.)

I don’t know where I stand on the above statements. I know that you can’t hold an entire generation of people accountable for the mistake made by a few. I think prison time is a little harsh, but something needs to be done. I know that kids will be kids, but terroristic threats, if overlooked, could cost people their lives.

Wednesday was supposed to be my daughter’s first day of school at Malta Elementary. On that day, I saw dozens of kids outside playing, enjoying the wonderful spring weather, taking advantage of the day off. While I struggle to understand the events of the past couple of days, these children went about their business as if a bomb threat was just an everyday occurrence. I am proud of their bravery. I’m sad that this has become a common event.