The social media postings of a former student of Lester B. Pearson High School caught the attention of a private company in Washington, D.C. and, according to the company’s founder, landed a suspect in handcuffs without any shots being fired.
The Tactical Institute, founded by former NCIS special agent and FBI terrorism task force member Bob Dowling, monitors social media around the clock on behalf of its paying clients to flag potential threats to organizations and individuals.
Despite the fact the Calgary Board of Education is not one of its clients, Tactical Institute staff noticed a disturbing message on Twitter that they deemed too worrisome to dismiss.
“One of our teammates found a threat to a school and a display of a rifle with a scope with the Tweet stating they were going to shoot their school,” said Dowling of Tuesday's discovery. “We went into the account legally – open source, no right to privacy, anybody with an internet connection in Canada or the U.S. could see it or anywhere else – and we were able to put together a matrix that scored high enough for our team to reach out to the school.”
Dowling says the direct nature of the threat, the repeated threats from the social media account against the school and a geocode indicating the suspect was posting from a location in close proximity to the school culminated in the decision to intervene.
According to Dowling, his staff determined the threats were targeting Lester B. Pearson High School in northeast Calgary and a phone call was made to warn the school’s principal of the social media posts. Dowling says the principal identified the Twitter user as a recent graduate of the school and the Calgary Police Service was notified of the postings.
Dowling says officers visited the former student’s residence on Tuesday and an arrest was made. Calgary Police Service officials confirm one person was taken into police custody from a location off school property in connection with the investigation.
In a statement sent to parents and guardians of Lester B. Pearson students on Wednesday, officials with the Calgary Board of Education addressed the alleged threats.
“School administration was made aware of an apparent threat by a former student of our school on social media. The school immediately called the Calgary Police Service (CPS) to assess the situation. CPS determined that there was no threat to the students or the school and our school day continued as usual.”
“All threats of this nature are taken seriously and fully investigated. Each situation that arises requires an appropriate level of response to ensure the safety and security of students and staff. Should there be evidence that would require the school to initiate other critical incident protocols or procedures we would act quickly to enact those processes.”
According to Dowling, the Tactical Institute has been credited with intervening in 19 planned schools attacks, occurrences where weapons had been obtained by a suspect or suspects, in the last five years.
While threats against Canadian schools are not commonplace, Dowling says his company located a threat against Balwin School in northeast Edmonton in September of this year and authorities were notified. The move prompted the lockdown of the K to 9 school and resulted in the arrest of a suspect.
With files from CTV’s Lea Williams-Doherty
