We knew there was a reason we hated text messaging…
That was the general feeling in the Countian office – and probably throughout both the law enforcement and education communities in Sussex County – by late afternoon on March 20.
Beginning with a text “threat” about women being shot at Walmart – which has been debunked on Snopes.com and numerous other urban-myth sites for, literally, four years – and culminating with the text-messaged and phoned-in threats at Seaford, Woodbridge, Sussex Central and Sussex Tech, the week was rife with incidents largely involving teens who, apparently, were looking for new and creative ways to get out of class.
The Mid-Atlantic region, however, is running out of nerve when it comes to incidents involving gunplay. In just the last few years, Mid-Atlantic natives have dealt with:
• The Lee Malvo sniper killings
• Alison Lamont Norman’s shooting spree up and down U.S. 13
• The University of Delaware and Virginia Tech murders
Not to mention October 2007, when a couple of lunkheads from Sussex Central thought it would be cool to drive around the parking lot firing at students with a pellet gun.
Residents – and certainly police – rightly have no patience for this sort of thing. One of the many refrains repeated by Delaware State Police Spokesman Sgt. Josh Bushweller throughout Friday’s incidents was “This is a felony; it’s not a joke.”
The woman who allegedly sent out the shooting text that caused evacuations at Seaford and Woodbridge? She got charged with terroristic threatening, along with her niece and nephew. That is indeed not a joke.
It is a testament to the quick work of investigators that three arrests had already been made by Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the texting: state police arrested a 13-year-old Seaford girl on Sunday who was sending bomb threats a full day before school even started!
Kudos to school officials for acting quickly and decisively, and to the police for delivering a short, sharp lesson in what happens when you incite unnecessary panic in a post-9/11 world.
