Students could be expelled for online threats

Two honor-roll students at Horizon Middle School could be expelled for a year after making online threats against other students and teachers.

The sixth-grade boys also have to go before a judge on criminal charges.

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office was called last week when school officials saw the threats on a Web page a week after the Virginia Tech shootings.

“After interviewing everybody, we determined it wasn’t a credible threat. The boys were basically being stupid,” sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Clif Northam said. “We take it serious.”

The boys were charged with suspicion of interference with staff, faculty or students of an educational institution, “a misdemeanor offense similar to harassment,” Northam said.

Last week in Colorado Springs, a North Middle School student brought a loaded handgun to school, and an unarmed Sierra High School student allegedly said he intended to make a hit list; both students were arrested.

Monday, Colorado Springs police arrested a 17-year-old Harrison High School student who told a peer that he was going to build and use a pipe bomb at school and that he had access to guns.

Police recovered letters and notes written by the Harrison student, who was arrested and taken to Spring Creek Youth Services Center.

The Horizon students were suspended from the Falcon District 49 school and await expulsion hearings.

Northam said the boys’ threats were against two students they allege bullied them and two teachers they didn’t like.

No names were released.

The threats were removed from the site, which Northam didn’t name but said it was not MySpace.com, a site which has led to prior suspensions of local students posting threats.

The exact wording was not known, but Northam summed it up this way: “One boy said the boys (who were threatened) constantly picked on them. He said he hates them and he liked to see them dead. He didn’t say how he liked to kill him.”

Northam said the boys making the threats did not have access to weapons, according to the parents.

Jay Hahn, district school safety and emergency manager, said the first expulsion hearing will be held Friday.

Hahn, who is the hearing officer, doesn’t predict a shortterm expulsion.

“Nowadays, any threat is taken seriously when a student says something or writes something,” Hahn said. “We err on the side of extreme caution.”

The boys, both good students academically, are banned from school grounds and all activities. They cannot attend another Colorado public school during the expulsion period, Hahn said.

Hahn said Horizon officials learned of the threats when a female student told her mother, who notified the school.

Northam said the boys were fingerprinted and photographed at the police operations center before being released to their parents.

“Hopefully, that caused a significant emotional event to stop them from doing stupid things,” he said.

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