Effective Response to Bomb Threats

July 28, 2008
Simply evacuating a school when an anonymous call is received threatening a bomb threat is a nightmarish event.

Oh Crap!

Imagine this likely scenario for a moment:

You arrive for work 8:00 am, groggy, and as you enter through the double doors of your school, holding that steaming hot cup of coffee, the alert tones for a Bomb Threat goes off through your intercom and within minutes, thousands of teenagers are hurriedly rushed out of the building. Outside in the parking lot, there is nowhere for 1,000 hormone enraged, dysfunctional, high schoolers to go especially as the snow storm front rapidly approaches. Students are yelling that they are cold; administrators and teachers are scurrying around trying to maintain order, and you are well into wishing it was Friday instead of Monday.

Sound far fetched? Just ask the security managers tasked with protecting educational facilities that more often than not look like correctional centers than schools. In some school districts these types of situations occur weekly. I have been on both sides of an incident like this; first, as a police officer responding to bomb threats, and second, as a public high school teacher in class one minute and then having to manage out of control teenagers due to a school wide incident the next. In retrospect, I possess a unique view on the problems experienced by police, school personnel and school security when a bomb threat is received. I would argue that the time proven procedure of "evacuation always, each and every-time" in the event of a bomb threat, actually poses more harmful secondary problems than the initial threat itself. Quickly assessing the threat and responding with an alternative course of action instead of evacuating may be better.

Avoid the Domino Effect

Simply evacuating a school when an anonymous call is received threatening a bomb threat is a nightmarish event. There is nothing simple about it. Kids leave the building generally in an unorganized fashion; busing is not scheduled to pick them up; parents are at work and school personnel are bound by law to provide for the safety of each and every child. If the decision to close the school is made prior to the students arriving, then this causes other problems that tend to culminate into an avalanche.

As kids we used to love snow days when the school was closed due to inclement weather, but as an educator I found that when a school is closed due to an unscheduled event, thousands of people are directly and indirectly affected, and many times not for the better. Now add the threat to commit hyper-violence requiring police K9s, EOD, and media in addition to all the other factors mentioned above and you now have a nightmare that will last days. Most bomb threats are simply that; a threat. However, terrorists have found that true power is not in the act of killing, but in the fear that is imposed on law abiding citizens in the aftermath of the attack.

Defining the Threat...

Graeme R. Newman in his publication called "Guide No. 32, Bomb Threats in Schools", written for the Problem Oriented Policing Center, cites the FBI Classification of Threat Risk Levels as a guide for how to sort incoming threats. For example, a "Low Level Threat" is one where there is a minimal risk and most importantly is characterized by a threat that is:

  • Vague
  • Indirect
  • Lacks Realism
  • Made by a young child or background noise includes laughter
  • The caller is known

A threat that could be possible, but may not appear "realistic" is outlined at a "Medium Level of Threat". Instances accounting for this type of threat include:

  • More "direct" than the Low Level category.
  • Wording of the threat suggests some level of surveillance or intelligence gathering activity has taken place by the perpetrator.
  • The threat involves a follow-up statement indicating seriousness, such as "I'm not kidding" or "I'm serious".

High Level of Threat poses imminent danger or serious threat to the safety of others. In this case, the threat is:

  • "Direct, specific, and plausible"
  • For example, "This is John Smith. I'm fed up with Mr. Jones yelling at me. There's a bomb under his desk."
  • Threat suggests preparation has taken place for execution of the device.

Consider this

Once staff is trained to recognize how to field a threatening call, and administrative policies and procedures are in place to respond to an incident, consider the following tailored responses:

Low Level Threat - Contact the police immediately, and respond by conducting an unobtrusive search using administrative personnel who know what and whom belongs where. A search can actually take place while others may never know what has happened. Police EOD K9 teams, or their private sector equivalents, are particularly useful doing this type of search. Of course, if a device or suspicious package is found then common sense dictates a full evacuation is necessary.

Medium Level of Threat - Immediately contact the police and invoke limited evacuation of the target area, if possible, while conducting an unobtrusive search of entire facility outside of the target area. In this case, the remaining 2/3 of the institution and their operations will not be overtly affected.

High Level of Threat - Immediately contact the police while conducting a full evacuation, with search assets.

Finally, keep in mind that the evacuation plan for your organization or facility, should coincide with local emergency management response protocols so that first responders can be impeded as minimally as possible when arriving. Provide building blue-prints to your local police and fire personnel, especially if massive remodeling has been done, so that they will have a functional awareness of your facility before they have to respond to an incident.

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