Arrest Made in Tuesday Bomb Threat

An 11-year-old boy sits in the Muskingum County Juvenile Detention Center following his arrest in connection to a Tuesday bomb threat.

The threat was found written on a bathroom wall at Foxfire Schools on Pinkerton Lane. During the course of the investigation, school resource officer Deputy Joseph came across the student, who upon questioning confessed to writing the threat about two weeks earlier.

Sheriff Matt Lutz said the case will be turned over to the prosecutor and charges will be filed. Sheriff Lutz warns students these threats are taken seriously.

“The things they do could affect them the rest of their lives so a choice of a bad decision like this could cause them a lot of grief not to mention they could get stuffed imposed on them by the court system, probation, curfews, not allowed to go certain places things like that so there’s a lot of ramifications to the decisions you make,” said Sheriff Matt Lutz.

Sheriff Lutz said the student, in this case, will probably be charged as a minor, but could face felony charges of inducing panic. He said responding to bomb threats not only ties up school officials and interrupts the learning process, but slows down response times for authorities.

“We usually send other road units down to help. Also, you’re tying up fire departments if we bring fire departments in to search the building. A lot of times we look at the threat and see what kind of threat. We can’t give out all the information we look for but we look at what type of threat it is and what it says and make a determination to what our response is,” explained Lutz.

The name of the child won’t be released until formal charges are filed.