The Michigan Avenue entrance to Santa Monica High School
A series of threats on social media sent panic through high schools across Santa Monica and southern California Monday.
A “threatening photo” posted to SnapChat by a student at Santa Monica High School prompted some students to flee the campus mid morning. Others were forced to remain until they could be officially released to legal guardians.
Classes were canceled at St. Monica’s Catholic Elementary School and St. Monica’s High School after administrators were made aware of threats posted to Instagram late Sunday night.
“We are praying that this is a prank gone wrong. In the interim, we are taking it seriously,” the school said in an email to families. “Preliminary investigation by SMPD is that the original threat does not have anything to do with St. Monica Schools, but we are awaiting final confirmation.”
A Monday afternoon update from the Santa Monica Police Department indicated that the post referencing St. Monica’s originated from and was aimed at Elk Grove High School in Northern California.
News reports and social media posts indicated that separate threats caused confusion and panic at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, Palisades Charter High School in Pacific Palisades and an unidentified school in Buena Park.
No students were harmed throughout the day and officials for all the schools believe there are no credible threats to their campuses.
Dr. Ben Drati, Superintendent of the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District provided an update to the community Monday night:
“The student who posted the threat was interviewed, a threat assessment was conducted and the home was checked for weapons. SMPD determined that there are no weapons in the home. The student was not in school today and remains out of school while we pursue our disciplinary process identified in District Policy and Education Code,” he said.
“We understand that students and parents were fearful today and we can not emphasize enough how student and staff health and safety are our top priorities. We were confident that school was safe today or we would not have kept school open.
There were other threats in the area that were confused with the Samohi threat that was determined to be an isolated incident, not related to any other threats you may have heard about at Palisades, Hamilton or Fairfax High School.”
Classes are expected to resume as normal on Tuesday.
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