Police are continuing an investigation into the circulation of suspicious social media posts regarding Chinook High School in Lethbridge. One male student was in custody as of Tuesday afternoon.
Reports of “concerning photos” posted on the image messaging app Snapchat were flagged to police at about 11 p.m. Monday.
“One of the posts consisted of a firearm lying on top of a package of cigarettes and the second showed a case of bullets,” police said in a Tuesday statement. “Both posts had ‘Chinook High School’ written across them.”
Concerned parents said they got a busy signal when they tried calling the school Tuesday.
“To me, it felt better to be safe than to send him to school and if something had happened, I would have felt much worse,” said Pam Roy, whose child is a student at the school.
“To me, it was better to just keep him home where I knew what was going on with him.”
Before classes began, officers were sent to the west side high school. Police spoke with multiple witnesses.
Student Justice DeJager said a friend called to say it wasn’t a good idea to go to school.
“You would never expect someone to be like, ‘Hey, I’m going to show up with a gun tomorrow; don’t come to school.'”
“I’m still a bit iffy about it, because you never really know,” DeJager said.
An 18-year-old male student was taken into custody at the school just before 8:30 a.m. Police said he’s been interviewed about the posts.
Investigators don’t believe there is “any ongoing risk to the school.”
With files from Global’s Joe Scarpelli