Wake Sheriff wants investigator for school threats
Wake County Sheriff Willie Rowe made the announcement last week
School threats in Wake County have reached the point where Wake Sheriff Willie Rowe has announced the need for a dedicated investigator.
“The schools reflect the community at large and you see nationwide there’s been an uptick in criminal incidents and so we haven’t been spared here in Wake County,” Rowe said in a statement. “School safety is a big concern for all of us, parents, students, staff.”
Per the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, 23 threats were made against either a person or school in 2022, and in 2023 there have been 25 threats.
Our family got its own taste of school threats on Feb. 6 when the middle school my youngest child attends sent a letter to parents informing us a student had made a threat to the school. The letter also said there were threat 'rumors' the week before which parents were NOT informed about.
Last December, Fuquary-Varina Middle School ELA teacher Lynn Guilliams faced a 12-year-old shooting out a window in her classroom.
The child's reason: "Because I hate this school and everything in it."
A 13-year-old arrested in January of this year for communicating a threat of mass violence on educational property related to a Wayne County Public Schools property.
Threats made to schools weren’t the only safety issues seen across districts in the state. An alarming number of students brought weapons onto their campuses.
On Feb. 1, yet another gun was found on a student at a South Charlotte-Mecklengburg high school campus. Last year, 24 guns were confiscated in the CMS district in the first two months of school.
On Feb. 13, a family in Charlotte filed a civil rights complaint against CMS after their daughter was assaulted by a mob of students in the middle of her school; Albemarle Middle School in east Charlotte. There is a video of the girl being assaulted.
A six-year-old student brought a loaded gun to Fairview Elementary in Rocky Mount on Feb. 15.
Four days later, on Feb. 19, a loaded gun was found in a 4th grade student’s backpack at a North Carolina elementary school (Erwin Elementary School.
On Feb. 23, an unidentified juvenile brought an AR-15 to a basketball game at Millbrook High School. The juvenile was not a student.
Following the Millbrook incident, this headline appeared: 'It is alarming': Growing push for safety after series of guns found on campuses.
Then on Feb 24, an SRO at Jordan High in Durham took a gun away from a 14-year-old student.
On Mar. 16 the Durham Sherriff’s Office issued a press release notifying the public that the School Resource Officer (SRO) at Lowe’s Grove Middle School school resource officer received a tip of “a possible armed robbery of a student taking place on the school’s campus.”
The suspect was a 14-year-old student at the school and when they were apprehended, the student had a “handgun with an extended magazine and the victim’s property” on them.
The same day as the Lowe’s Grove incident, SROs at Hillside High School acted on a tip that 18-year-old Zadi Woodson intended to bring a firearm onto campus. A search of the student’s car produced a gun. Woodson was charged with possession of a stolen firearm, possession of a firearm on educational property, and carrying a concealed firearm.
On Mar. 24. the Durham Sherriff’s Office would report that 18-year-old Samuel Scipione of Raleigh was charged with three counts of communicating threats of mass violence on an educational property. The threats were against Research Triangle High School in RTP.
In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district (the second largest district in the state), finding a gun on campus was a weekly occurrence in 2022 as documented by WBT reporter Brett Jensen, who reported on over two dozen guns confiscated from students on Charlotte-Mecklenburg school campuses.
Disturbingly, on May 8, a different kind of threat emerged. A “white powder” was sent to the principal of Carter High School, located in the Winston-Salem area. Hazmat was called. Police are still investigating.
More To The Story
Fighting and violent behavior by students has steadily risen since kids returned to the classrooms after COVID lockdowns.
Prior to the pandemic, there were fights but not to the level we're seeing today.
Mass brawls in the halls are now commonplace in most middle and high schools across the country. In more cases than not, the fighting is filmed by students who are either part of the instigation or who are bystanders.
An example of such a brawl was one that took place in Virginia at Riverbend High School on Jan. 17 that involved at least 17 students. The Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office said charges included malicious wounding, assault by mob, and assault and battery in the incident. One student was knocked out cold; 10 were arrested but only 8 were charged.
None of the reports on the Riverbend incident asked where was the SRO? or where was the teacher/adult intervention.
In North Carolina, fights between students in Moore County and in other districts including Guilford County have been filmed and posted to social media by other students.
All of these crimes and fights in North Carolina are not surprising given the nationwide surge in such activities.
Crime in North Carolina K-12 schools rose almost 17% during the 2021-22 school year, per data published by the N.C Department of Public Instruction.
The top crimes reported in 2021-22:
possession of controlled substances (5,250)
possession of a weapon (3,292)
assault on school personnel (1,374)
The rate of reporting possession of a weapon rose 60.4% compared to the 2018-19 pre-pandemic school year.
Districts with the highest number of reportable crimes include Charlotte-Mecklenburg (1,532), Wake (1,367), Winston-Salem/Forsyth (587), and Guilford (473).
The rising violence and crime in schools both in North Carolina and across the country can be traced back to actions taken under the Obama administration.
Between 2011 and 2016, bad behavior such as fighting, drug use, and assaults was rising while discipline was being weakened - mainly as a result of policies pushed by the Obama administration such as "restorative justice."
One of the more spotlighted cases of Obama-era discipline practices was the "PROMISE" program, rolled out to alter suspension statistics of minority students that in the past had been suspended at higher rates than other groups. That higher suspension rate was dubbed the “School to Prison Pipeline” by activists.
Wake County Schools was one of the districts that altered its discipline policies after a sue-and-settle lawsuit.
Vague interventions such as “restorative justice” replaced suspensions or criminal referrals for violent incidents. In many cases, victims of crime at a school were forced to sit across from their attackers in a “restorative justice circle.”
Sure, suspension rates went down, but these “restorative” practices had no metrics attached to them and were really just masking continued crime and violence.
Notably, not once in the entire dialogue around the School to Prison Pipeline has anyone asked the question: Did the student deserve the suspension?
Weakened discipline policies are starting to be questioned as school crime skyrockets alongside crime in the surrounding areas, per a report by the Associated Press this past January:
As kids’ behavior reaches crisis points after the stress and isolation of pandemic shutdowns, many schools are facing pressure from critics to rethink their approaches to discipline — including policies intended to reduce suspensions and expulsions.
Approaches such as “restorative justice” were adopted widely in recent decades as educators updated exclusionary policies that cut off students’ access to learning and disproportionately affected students of color.
But more students have been acting out, and some school systems have faced questions from teachers, parents and lawmakers about whether a gentle approach can effectively address problems that disrupt classrooms.
Lawmakers in North Carolina have noted the problem and have filed at least one bill (House Bill 188) to protect teachers and bring discipline back into the classroom. The bill made it through the crossover deadline and is currently being considered by the Senate.