Hamilton police charge 19-year-old in connection with Westdale shooting threat

Two teens face charges and Hamilton police say to expect more arrests in connection with a string of threats at schools across Hamilton in the last week.

Many of the threats were found scrawled on bathroom walls, with all but one threatening school shootings. Many also specifically included Friday's date: June 3.

More threats continued to be reported Friday afternoon. Police were called to Sherwood Secondary School, after a school shooting message was found on a girls bathroom, and to Saltfleet District High School where there was an unconfirmed" threat. In the latter case a student overheard a conversation about another student who allegedly made a threatening comment in October.

Despite the flurry of threats - which involved as many as 10 local schools - Friday passed without any reports of violence related to the threats, police said.

All affected schools stayed open - with increased police presence - except for Westdale Secondary School, which the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board chose to shutter for the day. In that case, like others, there was a threat about a school shooting June 3 found on a bathroom stall wall. However, there were also additional threats related to that school.

A 19-year-old, who is not a student at the school, was charged with two counts of utter threat to cause death or bodily harm. He is scheduled to appear in court July 11, said Hamilton police Const. Indy Bharaj.

That teen is accused in connection with two alleged verbal threats that police believe may be tied to threat written on the bathroom wall.

And on Thursday, police arrested a 14-year-old girl in connection with a separate shooting threat found on a wall of St. Jean de Brebeuf Catholic Secondary School earlier this week.

The threats come in the wake of the killing of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas on May 24. It's unclear to what extent the shooting in Uvalde inspired the threats, whether any of the students involved in the Hamilton threats worked together, or if these are simply copycat threats intended to disrupt school.

Hamilton police youth service co-ordinator, Sgt. Jason Tadeson, said all the threats are being investigated as individual occurrences.

All threats are taken seriously," he said, adding that it doesn't matter if the threat is spoken, written, or posted online. Every single threat is a threat until proven otherwise."

As of Friday police were investigating shooting threats at: Bishop Tonnos Catholic Secondary School (twice); Westdale Secondary School; Hillcrest Elementary School; St. Jean de Brebeuf Catholic Secondary School; St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School; St. John Henry Newman Catholic Secondary School; Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School; Cootes Paradise Elementary School; Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School and Sherwood Secondary School. (The threat Saltfleet was unconfirmed).

All of them were written in the schools, including several on the walls of bathroom stalls. Most warned of shootings, except a threat at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School warned of a bombing.

Hamilton police are called every year about threats at local schools, but this volume and frequency as well as the number of schools that were targeted is unprecedented.

There are protocols developed with police and the school boards for threats. At Catholic schools the school liaison officer is contacted first, unless it's an imminent threat which would warrant a call to 911, said Tadeson. In public schools, where the board ended its police liaison program in 2020, they call 911 and patrol officers respond. Depending on the circumstances, some cases are sent to the divisional detectives office for further investigation.

It is up to schools to implement a lockdown, or a hold and secure, and to close schools. Lockdowns occur when there is a threat inside the school and a hold and secure involves locking exterior doors to guard against a possible threat outside the school. Schools do lockdown drills.

If there was ever a shooting, or any kind of imminent threat inside a school, Tadeson said police are trained in immediate rapid deployment.

Our job is to go direct to the threat and deal with the threat," he said.

Hamilton's Catholic school board says it receives school threats about two to four times a year. The public school board says it doesn't track these incidents. Police also don't have statistics on the number of school threats they investigate.

Police investigate these threats like any other crime, including talking to witnesses. In these cases police are also looking at analyzing handwriting.

Fear is created in the community when threats are made," Tadeson said.

There is no cookie cutter" approach to deal with these situations, but he said police and schools cannot do this work alone. This includes having open conversations about what is happening and reporting information to police.

It defaults on all of us in the community to keep us safe," he said.

Anyone with information is asked to call 905-546-4925. To remain anonymous contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or crimestoppershamilton.com.

Nicole O'Reilly is a crime and justice reporter at The Spectator. noreilly@thespec.com