Police praise school’s bomb threat response

Six minutes after a bomb threat was reported to Eunice police Thursday Central Middle School was cleared of students, faculty and other workers.
Police Chief Randy Fontenot said a crude bomb threat was found on a bathroom wall in the school.
As of Friday, police did not know who made the threat.
“The administration and the faculty at the school are commended for the job they did evacuating the children,” Fontenot said. “It was handled in a very orderly fashion. Everything was calm.”
Fontenot said all of the students were evacuated and accounted for when officers started arriving at the scene.
The officers’ first focused on the safety of those at the school before the bomb threat.
Fontenot said a few people showed up at the school to pick up students, but that is not allowed during an evacuation.
“When you have that kind of situation we ask people not to come to the school and not to come to the evacuation zone,” he said. “Parents are upset, but we do not allow them to approach the children and check children out of school.’
A count of the children has to be taken after an evacuation and when they return to school, he said. Allowing students to leave the school would endanger the counting process, he said.
“I want to stress we will not let you pick your kids up if there is an evacuation,” Fontenot said.
“Everything went smoothly,” he said of the response. “The way the evacuation was handled by the school couldn’t have been any better and the way they were returned couldn’t have been any better.”
The children were well behaved and cooperative during the event, he said. “We didn’t have any problem with the children.”
There are about 400 students at the school in grades 5 and 6, he said.
Thursday’s bomb threat was the first in recent memory, Fontenot said.
Police are working with Eunice schools to develop plans for such situations, he said.
Fontenot asked that the evacuation destination not be mentioned in the news, but added another site would be used if another threat is made.
In searching the school police did find a small rat snake in a bathroom.