An 18-year-old student was taken into police custody after suspicious messages were posted to social media in reference to Chinook High School in Lethbridge on Monday evening.
Police were alerted to several concerning posts on Snap Chat about the school at about 11:00 p.m.
Officials say one of the posts showed a firearm lying on top of a cigarette pack and a second was of a pencil case full of bullets. Both images had ‘Chinook High School’ written on them.
A number of people who saw the posts were interviewed by police and the school was notified about the threat on Tuesday morning.
“We have a threat assessment protocol and whenever a potential threat comes to the attention of someone from the school or in administration, we work directly with police to determine the voracity of the threat and then from there, make sure that we determine whether there’s anything imminent or immediate and then make decisions based on that,” said School Superintendent, Cheryl Gilmore.
Officers attended the school before classes started to make sure students and staff were safe.
The school remained open and it was left up to parents to decide if their children attended classes.
A student was taken into custody just before 8:30 a.m. without incident and has been questioned about the messages.
“We still have a number of questions to be answered about intent and what the messages, the intent of them, I guess, so we’re still investigating so It will be a little while yet before we can give any answers for that ,” said LPS S/Sgt Dwayne Smith.
Police say there is no ongoing risk to the school and so far no charges have been laid in the incident.
The photos were posted on Snap Chat and had Chinook Hich School written across them.
