A 20-year-old former Dickinson High School student who left a seemingly threatening message on the school's voicemail Nov. 18 has not been charged or arrested, according to the Dickinson Police Department.
An arrest is not likely in the case, said DPD Sgt. Dave Wilkie.
The former student allegedly left the message on the evening of Nov. 18, stating "that school is (expletive deleted) and there may be nothing left of it next week," Wilkie said.
The man allegedly told police he did it because he was upset with a derogatory misprint in the school's year book, Wilkie said.
"The reason he made the threat, he says, is because he was under the influence and he called the school ... because of the way they handled the thing," he said.
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Stark County State's Attorney Tom Henning said he didn't charge the man because of the situation.
"I have no intention of prosecuting somebody for a remark like that under those circumstances," he said. "That is clearly a heated remark made in circumstances that constituted provocation. Was his remark appropriate? No, but it's not like it was totally without any kind of causation."
The man who allegedly made the statement wasn't arrested because the message was vague, Wilkie said.
"We can insinuate what he means, but he's not very specific about what he means," he said.
However, school officials asked for additional police presence when
the message was discovered the following Monday, said Dickinson Public Schools Superintendent Doug Sullivan.
"Working with the Dickinson Police Department, we just provided some increased security in an abundance of caution," he said. "We were just thankful that the police department was there to help."
School continued as normal, Wilkie said.
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"Had he said 'there's a bomb in the building,' it would have been treated differently," he added. "When it comes to the school, we don't try to do what's easiest. We take a very proactive approach when it comes to the schools. If there's a threat we act as if it's real."
Police try to judge how credible a threat seems when deciding how to react to it, Wilkie said.
DPD gets about one school threat, such as a bomb threat, a year, he added.
"It's not something we do a whole lot of and most of the time a bomb threat comes in at 1:30 on a really nice spring or summer day," Wilkie said. "That's pretty typical that it will come in on a nice day because nobody wants to stand out in the cold."
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
