Fillmore Schools placed on soft lockdown after possible threat

Fillmore Schools placed on soft lockdown after possible threat

Fillmore schools have extra security in place after a possible threat to Millard High School.

According to Millard School District official, Kieth Griffiths, a student reported they had overheard another student threaten violence. The threat was possibly going to happen during an assembly at the high school Thursday morning.

Officials placed the Elementary, Jr. and High schools on a soft lockdown with all exterior doors locked, but classes and busses are scheduled to run as usual.

The district superintendent was at the high school along with several police officers as an extra precaution.

Griffiths says police will investigate the threat further.

The Millard County Sheriff released the following statement Thursday Afternoon on Facebook.

 

A week ago, a young sales clerk in a local convenience store attended to a customer. Within the transaction, the unknown male offered up a statement that he was “waiting to shoot a school”. That information was not immediately brought forth to authorities.

Just this morning, as the Fillmore area School Resource Officer was reporting to work, literally minutes before an assembly at Millard High School, he was approached with information that there would be a shooting at the assembly at Millard High School this morning. We along with the local Schools took immediate action.

The investigation has revealed that from the original statement made last week, inaccuracies had developed as it went through the “grapevine”.
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Clearly, the timely reporting of such statements more fully empowers authorities to effectively and proportionately react. We continue to encourage the immediate reporting of such statements related to school violence. In our current climate, no statement regarding school violence can be ignored or tolerated. The delay in this information clearly allowed a mutation of fact which rendered concern, anxiety, and resource allocation at a time and place contrary to the actual facts. None-the-less, given the attention and response thus far today, Fillmore Schools will remain on soft lock down through the remainder of the day and law enforcement will have an increased presence out of precaution and peace of mind. We believe this situation is safe.

For now, what comes out of this experience, is a demonstration of coordinated concern and processes to keep students safe. We feel good about our coordinated law enforcement response today as many on-duty and off-duty Deputies and Highway Patrolman rapidly deployed. Should there be shortcomings, they will come to light and allow us to address them.

We clearly will continue an investigation to identify who the individual who made the statement is, whether he is a local resident, and if there is a valid threat against any specific location. More information will be released upon its development.