Wave of Rumors, Threats Sweeps Schools; Some Close

A new round of Internet-fed rumors that schools would be targeted for attacks Friday--the 54th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s death--frayed already raw nerves at school campuses across the country.

From Mission Viejo, where sheriff’s deputies checked every locker before school started to help allay student fears, to New Jersey, where one suburban district closed in the face of rumors of violence, school administrators were faced with an increasingly difficult task: They had to simultaneously calm students and quell rumors, while taking everything seriously.

“It’s been pretty hard the last couple of weeks,” said Jim Sieger, principal of Marco F. Forster Middle School in San Juan Capistrano, where an act of vandalism this week became falsely magnified into whispers of hatchets in doors and threatening notes.

“We’re dealing with hearsay, rumors and gossip. Because of the seriousness of everything that happened in Colorado, every parent and every student wants an explanation of every rumor. It needs to be personal. It needs to be calm. . . . You don’t take anything lightly.”

Rumors and fears of violence--along with an occasional bomb threat or other scare--have been problems in schools since the student rampage last week that claimed 15 lives in Littleton, Colo. But in many places, the fear seemed to peak Friday, the anniversary of Hitler’s suicide.

Thousands of California students skipped classes Friday.

The reach of the new rumors was capricious, however. At some schools, hundreds of students failed to show up for the day or came to campuses guarded by extra police officers, while at neighboring districts, all was quiet.

“This is a terrible time for school administrators, teachers and especially students and parents,” said John A. Lammel of the National Assn. of Secondary School Principals. “You have to give every phone call, fight and bomb threat even more serious attention than usual. . . . It sets everybody in a very high state of nervous energy.”

Some officials warned against overreaction and worried that fear was deliberately being amplified as a good excuse to play hooky on a Friday.

“Reporting every Internet bomb threat contributes to the climate of concern,” said Shel Erlich, spokesman for the Los Angeles Unified School District, noting that with nearly 700,000 students, safety concerns can arise on any day at any school.

In fact, at a number of schools students spread rumors that Web sites had listed their school specifically as the next target of violence. However, none of the students interviewed had actually seen such a Web site, and law enforcement agencies said they could not find evidence of any Web sites with such specific threats.

What made matters worse for police was that schoolchildren would arrive home and notify parents of Internet buzz, creating an echo effect, said Lt. Mike Idom of the Cypress Police Department in Orange County.

“If you talked to parents whose kid went to Cypress, it was Cypress [that was targeted],” Idom said. “If they went, say, to Loara, then it was Loara that was going to have a bomb threat.”

Added Clinton Taylor, superintendent of schools in Temple City in the San Gabriel Valley: “There are so many rumors you cannot count them . . . parents aren’t helping.”

Still, while the rumors seemed groundless in most cases, principals and police at some schools felt compelled to take a variety of precautions late this week.

In the Orange County community of Brea, for example, police spent the night at one school, then stayed on in the school office to help answer an avalanche of calls from worried students.

In Mission Viejo in south Orange County, officials canceled announcement of the homecoming king and queen to avoid gathering too many teenagers in a single spot at once.

“It’s just not a good idea to pack everyone inside the gym when tensions are so high,” said Principal Marilyn McDowell.

In South Pasadena, school officials reported the arrest of an eighth-grader who allegedly had told other students he was going to blow up the school. Police felt the youth was troubled but didn’t have the means to carry out the threat. Nevertheless, the teenager was arrested, in part to calm the community, parents were told.

At Quartz Hill High School in the Antelope Valley, where three students were arrested earlier in the week on suspicion of making violent threats, administrators and teachers warned pupils that joking about violence could lead to expulsion.

Many schools beefed up security, adding the presence of police officers and bomb-sniffing dogs.

In other places, parents reacted on their own. In northern San Diego County, school officials reported much higher than normal absenteeism. In Poway, for example, about 40% of students stayed home. Ventura schools reported triple the normal rate of absenteeism.

About 1,600 students were absent Friday at La Mirada High School in southeast Los Angeles County, despite assurances from school officials that threats of violence connected to Hitler’s birthday were groundless.

In several scattered communities, scary facts swirled around with the fiction.

A 17-year-old student in the Bay Area suburb of San Rafael was arrested on suspicion of posting names of students he wanted to kill on an Internet Web page.

In Pleasant Hill, 30 miles away, authorities arrested a 25-year-old man, an 18-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman after one of them called in a bomb threat to a high school. Officials believe the threat was intended to get a girlfriend of one of the suspects out of classes for the day.

Students at several high schools in Shasta County in Northern California arrived Friday morning to find campuses dotted with white supremacist fliers and swastikas.

On Thursday, police in Oxnard arrested a high school student who allegedly had threatened to blow up Hueneme High School. Officers said they found as many as 10 pipe bombs in his house. The home of a Newbury Park teenager was searched as well, because of a tip that he had posted a hit list on the school’s Web page naming people he intended to harm.

In New Jersey, police and school officials in the suburban town of Hillsborough decided to close all the district’s schools after several middle school students received an e-mail message that suggested a school might be attacked Friday.

A decision about when to reopen the schools will be made over the weekend, Supt. Robert Gulick said in a letter to parents.

“These are serious, stressful times,” Gulick wrote. “Safety at school is our No. 1 priority.”

The New Jersey district was hardly alone. In the New York town of Cheektowaga, officials closed John F. Kennedy High School after parents pulled many students out in response to a letter threatening violence. Similar reports came from areas as widely scattered as Madison, Wisc., and Charlotte, N.C.

A note scrawled on a bathroom wall at a school in Scituate, R.I., that proclaimed “you die on April 30th” prompted nearly half the school’s 900 students to stay home.

“A hysteria was developing in the community,” said Paul Lescault, superintendent of Scituate schools.

Trying to reassure worried students and parents, officials in the Grossmont Unified High School District in El Cajon, east of San Diego, hired additional security guards to patrol 11 campuses. Still, 1,000 students stayed home from one high school.

Sheriff’s deputies scoured Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo for bombs and guns early Friday morning after days of persistent campus rumors that a deadly rampage was imminent.

“Welcome to the safest place on Earth,” Principal Dan Burch said after the deputies arrived. While the rumors were unfounded, Burch and district officials decided the strong police presence would comfort students and the scores of panicked parents who were swamping the school switchboard.

Still, it wasn’t enough for Maria Olvera of Mission Viejo, who pulled her 16-year-old daughter out of class after she dropped off a homework assignment.

“I know the authorities are all over the place, but why take a risk?” Olvera said. “I know my daughter will be safe back home.”

Some students said their peers fanned the flames of fear.

“There’s a rumor that if there is an X on your locker, you’re going to get shot today,” said Jon Povey, 18, a senior from Mission Viejo. “I don’t think anyone really believed it, but yesterday someone put Xs on lockers before school.”

The Irvine Police Department has been swamped by calls from parents chilled by rumors or alleged death threats against their children.

At one Irvine high school, a student was overheard telling another, “I just wish you weren’t here”--a comment reported to the police as a death threat, said Sgt. Leo Jones.

“Paranoia is spreading,” Jones said. “Literally, every student that has demonstrated some individuality or uniqueness is being scrutinized. I think it’s an unfortunate overreaction.”

Still, the agency is investigating everything.

As Los Angeles police increased their presence Friday at Granada Hills High School, doomsday scenarios continued to spread rapidly, said Principal Kathleen Rattay.

“Basically, the rumor was that Granada Hills was going to end today,” Rattay said.

School staff spent part of the day answering calls from concerned parents. The number of absent students tripled Friday.

With untruths spreading on every nearby campus, they proved difficult to douse.

In Brea, school and police officials worked feverishly all week inspecting the campus of Brea Olinda High School after the first rumor of a possible bomb was received last Sunday.

“People are really frightened,” said Lt. David Carlock. “Parents are calling up the Police Department and asking, ‘Should I send my kid to school? Is it safe?’ ”

Complicating matters was the timing of Brea Olinda’s prom, scheduled for Friday night. Because of a school policy mandating attendance for at least four periods on the day of a school event, the campus’ phone lines never quieted.

“Hello? Yes, we’re still here,” school secretaries were overheard saying. “No, the four walls are still up. That’s it? That’s all you wanted to know? Goodbye.”

*

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Mark Fritz in New York, Kurt Streeter, Richard Lee Colvin, David Reyes, Michael Luo, Lisa Richardson, P.J. Huffstutter, Kristina Sauerwein and Kay Saillant in California, and Times correspondents Richard Winton and Monte Morin.

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