Police investigating homophobic message at east Hamilton school as hate crime

Hamilton police are investigating two threats of violence at an east Hamilton high school, the latest in a spate of threats that have plagued local schools for weeks.

The first, found Thursday morning, warned of a shooting on June 17 and contained a homophobic hate message against the two-spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities," Glendale Secondary School principal Dave Schroeder said in a letter to families.

Police spokesperson Jackie Penman said police are investigating this as a hate crime."

A second threat - referring only to a shooting - was discovered on Friday at the audition-based arts school.

Both were written on the wall in the girls' bathroom, police spokesperson Jackie Penman said in an email.

Police were on-site and there were no issues" at the school on Friday, she said.

As of Friday, no suspects had been identified.

These latest threats are part of what the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) calls a disturbing trend" in the city's school communities.

We take incidents like these very seriously," Schroeder said in the letter. We continue to work with our school community to ensure students understand the impact threats have on individuals and the overall school climate."

A threat was also reported at Annunciation of Our Lord Catholic Elementary School on Friday. The school's principal said in a letter to parents that a student reported a bomb threat' message written on a scrap of paper and left on the boys' washroom floor' on June 14."

Our school investigation over the past two days has provided some new information and we are working to identify the author," he wrote. Students are reminded that threats have consequences."

Threats reported to police over the last several weeks have targeted more than a dozen schools across the city. Hamilton police have said all the threats are being taken seriously and investigated separately.

Four teens have been charged in connection with separate threats as of June 10.

Experts say a contagion effect" can occur in the wake of highly publicized violence like the fatal May 24 shooting in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.

The letter home from Glendale also referred to the HWDSB Helps app, available for both iOS and Android devices, as an anonymous way to seek help for any students made anxious or upset by the spate of threats.

Kate McCullough is an education reporter at The Spectator. kmccullough@thespec.com