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Last Thursday, Slippery Rock Area School District (SRASD), Butler Area School District and several other schools in the county closed due to threats of violence.
Official communication from SRASD stated, “In an abundance of caution, the Slippery Rock Area Schools will be closed today, September 12, 2024.”
SRU communications informed the community that the university was aware of the threats but will remain open.
“University Police and Pennsylvania State Police are closely monitoring the situations that are under investigation by the FBI,” SRU communication said. “[T]here is no credible evidence to warrant closing the University.”
No further advancements have been made public by the University or local school districts.
Butler Intermediate High School and Butler Area Senior High School went into lockdown Thursday after threats were made on social media, according to WPXI. Some threats were made directly toward Butler or surrounding schools while others were less specific.
Shaler Police stated that an elementary school student admitted to making the threats, and they have been ruled as non-credible.
Similar targeted threats have affected western Pennsylvania schools in recent years, including last March when a bomb threat shut down Butler Area High School.
In tandem with the threats last week, the nation saw a trend of increasing threats made to schools.
Although no official government statistics have been released, the term “school threat” reached its highest Google search rate since December 2021, according to Google Trends statistics.
This apparent increase is in contrast to threat incidents in years past.
According to the Educator’s School Safety Network, a non-profit organization aimed at reducing violence in schools, swatting decreased by 23% from the 2022-2023 to the 2023-2024 school year.
Leading theories as to why the increase in threats is happening now pertain to the deadly school shooting in Georgia one week prior to the threats.
According to an Axios interview with Ken Trump, President of National School Safety and Security Services, after every-high profile shooting “you see an uptick for at least a week or two” of additional threats across the nation.
Additionally, former president Donald Trump, no relation to Ken Trump, is accused of an increase in threats towards school systems in Springfield, Ohio.
Springfield City School District has received over 30 bomb threats since September 13, three days after the debate between Trump and Vice President Kamla Harris.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs—the people that came in. They’re eating the cats,” the former president said in his debate with Harris.
Trump’s running mate, JD Vance , originally posted on X prior to the debate on September 9 writing, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” In an attached video to the post, Vance raised concerns of the strain of rapid immigration on housing and public services of Springfield.
Trump and Vance made the statements following their criticism of the Biden-Harris administration immigration policies and border control.
A police spokesperson in Springfield stated told Reuters there are “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Evidence has yet to surface backing the Trump and Vance claims.
