Colorful 4J cars with “School Safety” on the side of them once again sat in the parking lot of South Eugene High School. Parents picked up their kids in the middle of a Wednesday for the second week in a row as a bomb squad searched the campus.
Eugene Police Department had informed the high school that morning that an automated voice call came into its dispatch center saying there was a bomb on campus set to detonate in two hours, 4J Superintendent Andy Dey said in front of Kidsports where students were evacuated to. A few minutes later, another call said there was a student in one of the school’s bathrooms with a firearm.
The school went on lockdown before classes were canceled at 11 a.m. and students evacuated. A bomb squad searched the school and gave the all-clear around noon.
The threats come exactly a week after EPD received a call with the same message of a bomb threat and the school evacuated.
“It’s a shame that someone thinks that this is funny or this is how they spend their time by disrupting thousands of people’s lives by threatening them,” Dey said.
The first time the school was evacuated, some students and teachers saw the threat as a hoax or a nuisance, he said. But others have found these situations to be stressful.
“Some who have been involved in traumatic events in the past, this is particularly difficult for them,” he said.
Dey said 4J tries to improve its response to these kinds of situations each time they happen. After each of the events, 4J staff debrief what went well and what did not.
“We don’t want to be really really good at this through trial and error,” he said.
Dey has been superintendent of 4J for just eight months.
Throughout his time working for the district — eight years — he said he has experienced kids pulling fire alarms and threats on social media, but nothing to this level.
“I’m very sorry that this happened. It’s not something that we tolerate,” he said. “And we have found perpetrators of these crimes in the past and we will work tirelessly to do the same with our police department.”
