Lockdown lifted after Troopers find threat unfounded
Delta Junction schools briefly locked down Friday afternoon in response to a threat of gun violence that was later determined to be unfounded. Other schools in Alaska also were threatened.
Delta Greely School District Superintendent Michael Lee said all four schools and other buildings were locked-down Friday afternoon after officials were informed of the threat.
“We received a notification of a possible threat,” he said Friday. “Just out of an abundance of caution, we did lock down all of our school buildings in the district until we could either verify that it was a threat, a credible threat or that it wasn't.”
Alaska State Troopers say district officials got a report of the threat from a veterans crisis-line worker, who said the agency had gotten a call from a person who threatened to “shoot up the schools in Delta Junction.”
“We contacted the troopers,” Lee said, “we also sent out a mass communication to our parents to let the parents know that we had locked the buildings down.”
A Trooper dispatch said officers checked the schools and the surrounding area, but didn’t find any evidence of a threat. Lee said after about 45 minutes the lockdown was lifted.
“At no time were students in any danger,” Lee said. “We were just doing this out of an abundance of caution. We take every threat seriously just to ensure the safety of our students.”
The superintendent said classes resumed -- and so did the tournament.
“We’re also hosting a middle-school basketball tournament this weekend. And we have basketball under way.”
The Trooper dispatch said several other schools around the state also got similarly threatening calls. That’s similar what happened in September 2023, when more than 150 schools around the country, including at least a dozen in Alaska, received fake bomb threats.
A Trooper spokesperson said Monday that schools in Anchorage and Sitka also got mass-shooting threats on Friday.
