A threat posted via social media alluded to a potential act of violence at MHS, causing fear and absences among students, according to Sergeant Peter Tachis of the Milpitas Police Department. The post, sent out in the evening on Oct. 23, depicted multiple guns lying on a mattress and a caption telling MHS students to “watch out” the next day.
According to a public service announcement on the Milpitas Police Department’s Instagram page on Oct. 24, the police determined that a 14-year-old MUSD student initiated the threat as “a prank due to boredom.” “At Milpitas High School, the attendance was 83.91% today,” Superintendent Cheryl Jordan said at the MUSD Board of Education meeting on Oct. 24. “When people put these types of threats on social media, it impacts every person and disrupts the education process.”
At least 655 students were absent on Oct. 24, mainly due to the school threat, senior staff secretary of the attendance office Lori Louie said. The police were first notified of the threat by an anonymous report in the evening hours of Oct.23, Tachis said. They identified the alleged suspect behind the threat a short time after noon on Oct. 24, he added. “During the nighttime shift, officers began investigating the social media post that alluded to an act of violence that could happen at the high school the following morning,” Tachis said.
Officers and detectives worked together to identify the person who posted the threat and, more
importantly, to determine the credibility of the threat, Tachis said. The investigation bureau has seven to eight employees and this was a high-priority case, so the majority of the team was probably working on it, he added.“Our investigators can go through a series of channels to conduct the investigation, like writing search warrants and looking through public databases,” Tachis said. “Through that, we’re usually able to piece together who somebody is.”
After identifying the alleged culprit, some of the routine procedures in an interview are to check the person’s access to weapons and prior histories, Tachis said. The investigators also try to identify the motive to see if it was malicious or benign, he added. Other interviews also help officers determine if the threat is credible or not, he added.
According to a public service announcement on Oct. 23 on the department’s Instagram account, “making threats to schools through social media is a felony offense.” “In this case, due to the nature of what was put out and the impact it had on the community, there were criminal charges pursued against the student, which means we bring the case forward to the Juvenile Probation Department to determine any kind of criminal punishment or if there’s going to be criminal charges at all,” Tachis said. The consequences are a two pronged fork, Tachis said. There’s the criminal side, where charges were pursued, and the school side, where they would decide what disciplinary action to take, he added. Laws under section 422 of the California Penal Code, added this past year that increased the penalty of criminal threats towards schools and businesses, he added.
A friend in a group chat sent a screenshot of the post with the gun threat to senior Vanessa Lam, she said. The friend told the group to be careful, she added. “At first, I was kind of confused because I was like, ‘Is that real?’” Lam said. “There’s some suspicion and doubt. But there’s also surprise and concern because there’s the potential for it to be real. And if it’s real, I should take proper measures against it and report it.”
While Lam didn’t report the threat, some people in the group chat reported the post by texting a teacher or using the Say Something app, Lam said. Later, the friends in the group mentioned that many parents and students reported it as well, she added. “I went to school because one, I heard from a number of other people that the photo was fake; it was a photo from Pinterest,” Lam said. “And two, many other students were reporting it, the principal was aware, and admin was working with the police. So I believed it was safe enough to go to school.”
When asked about school shootings in America and how real the threat feels, Lam said that there is always the possibility for such events, but when school is considered a safe place, the danger feels a little distant, she said. “I think it (the school’s response) was pretty quick,” Lam said. The post was on “an Instagram story, and Instagram stories are only up for 24 hours. And almost immediately after this person posted online, it was reported; I heard a bunch of people reported it using the (Say Something) app, and we heard news immediately after that.”
The police department wants students to be forthcoming with any information to prevent any kind of tragedy, Tachis said. “This is our job to investigate and make sure people are safe,” Tachis said. “We’d much rather do that multiple times on tips that don’t lead to anything than write off a tip as not important or have a student not give us a tip and it winds up leading to a heinous event.” Principal and Chief Innovator of MHS and New Campus Programs Greg Wohlman declined to be interviewed for this story, citing concerns for student safety.