PENTICTON — Police tell a room packed with more than two hundred concerned parents and community members that they have not found a suspect in connection to a letter that threatens a mass shooting.
READ: Threatening letter found at south Okanagan schools
Jaspina Mann has four children who attend schools in the district and says this news does not ease her family’s worries.
“It’s concerning that they don’t have anybody, but at the same time, I think when somebody wants to hide from something, it is possible to do it,” she says.
During the question and answer portion of the meeting, Superintendent Kevin Hewco is asked to rate the level of threat.
“Our gut check is that it is low, but we can’t treat it that way,” he explains. “Because there’s been no second occurrence — because we’re not getting any tips, too — we think the threat level is reasonably low.”
But Hewco stresses this does not undermine their investigation and there will be continual police presence at Skaha Lake Middle School, Princess Margaret Secondary School, Penticton Secondary School and Okanagan Falls Elementary School.
Wendy Hyer, Superintendent of School District 67, says there will also be increased adult supervision and partial lockdowns at those four schools for the remainder of this week.
“As the week progresses, we will be encouraging all of our schools to return to normal operations as soon as possible,” she says. “The sooner we can get back to normal routines, the less traumatized behaviour we see in our youth and our children.”
It has been five days since copies of that threatening letter were sprawled across the grounds of Skaha Middle School and Princess Margaret Secondary, and RCMP continue to ask for the public to assist in the investigation.
“Somebody has noticed something different about somebody — we hear this a million times. Somebody is acting just a bit odd or when this story broke, and all of a sudden they’re been hiding in a basement,” says Hewco.
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