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District: Over 4,000 students absent after threats made to schools

Posted at 7:57 PM, Feb 27, 2018
and last updated 2018-02-28 16:59:06-05

Police are investigating threats made to a Killeen middle school and arrested a suspect Wednesday morning.  

Killeen Independent District said that Audie Murphy Middle School has not canceled class but that officials have investigated a threat made to the school and its students. 

"These are the same kinds of rumors and same kinds of anonymous social media threats that have been circulating through our district and hundreds of other school districts around Texas and across the country since the attack on the Florida school," said district chief communications officer Terry Abbott. "We take each threat, even the anonymous ones, seriously and report them to police. Our police have worked diligently with other local law enforcement agencies to investigate each one of these threats."

A 12-year-old student was arrested Wednesday morning with making the threats against several Killeen schools

Over 4,000 students were absent Wednesday as a result of the threat. The district said that attendance rate went down to 89 percent. 

Messages were sent to Audie Murphy Middle School, Smith Middle School, Liberty Hill Middle School and Patterson Middle School. 

"We will have an increased military police presence on our campus and we will continue to conduct classes as normal," said Mike Quinn, Audie Murphy Middle School principal. "I would urge you to talk to your students about the seriousness of making threats of any kind and that all threats, actual or implied, will be dealt with under the guidelines of the Student Code of Conduct and with police involvement."

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