By Greg Halbleib
NORMAL – Unit 5 leaders and Normal Police say they don’t believe graffiti found in Normal West High School restroom is a serious threat, although some security measures will be added for the remainder of the school term.
Normal West administrators sent an email to parents Tuesday saying a student found writing on a boys restroom wall referring to a possible shooting at the school on Thursday. In a second email to parents on Wednesday, Normal West principal Dave Johnson said the graffiti read, “On Thursday I will shot (sp) up this school.”
Normal Police Chief Rick Bleichner said officers investigated the graffiti and pictures of it posted on social media and concluded the threat is not serious.
“At this point, we don’t believe it’s not a credible threat, but we’re not going to take that lightly,” Bleichner said. “Our school resource officer and others will be at the school and we’ll have some other staff in the area.”
The message from Unit 5 said while they also don’t believe the threat is cause for concern, they asked any student who knows more to come forward.
In the second email, Johnson said students will only be allowed to enter and exit through four doors for the rest of the school year and additional security measures will be implemented. He added that this isn’t the first concerning thing found on a restroom wall and won’t be the last and he plans to be at school as usual, but he understands parental concerns and asks that any parent who holds their students out of class to call the attendance line and they will be excused and only required to make up any missed work.
Greg Halbleib can be reached at [email protected].
