Staff photo by C.T. Kruger
West Allis Police and Fire departments and the Milwaukee County Sheriff responded to West Allis Central on Feb. 4 after a bomb threat was made against the school. Students were evacuated to Mount Hope Lutheran Church at 86th and Beecher streets as a holding location until transported home or released to parents.
School districts have to deal with a lot, not the least of which are shooting and bomb threats.
In fact, in 2016 alone, there have been four threats of shootings or bombings in suburban Milwaukee. That includes activity at West Allis Central High School, where administrators and police officials had to deal with two bomb threats about a month apart. Officials dealt with bomb threats at the school on back-to-back days March 7 and 8.
The timeline above shows when and in what districts or schools threats have been made since 2012. The timeline covers schools in the Now Newspapers and Lake Country coverage area, which covers mainly suburban Milwaukee County and Waukesha County, plus a few other municipalities, including Germantown and Mequon.
Since 2012, there have been at least 30 threats made in that coverage area. That number increases if you include threats made in Southeastern Wisconsin outside of the Now Newspapers and Lake Country coverage area, such as one in Racine County in October 2015.
In light of the number and frequency of school threats in recent years, officials have been pushing for harsher penalties for students or other people caught giving those threats, specifically regarding school shootings. Those efforts include Oconomowoc administrators testifying in Madison and the Pewaukee police chief supporting making shooting threats a felony.