Hoax threat to schools raises alarm across Ohio

The following story was written by a student on the staff of The Jaguar Times as part of Hilliard Bradley High School’s Journalism Production course.

by Addison Maley 

Editor-in-Chief

On Sunday, Dec. 11, a multitude of schools across Ohio, Including Hilliard City Schools, received email threats from a source claiming to be a Russian terrorist group. Though the threat was deemed a hoax, it sent shockwaves through the state. 

The mass email stated that the alleged terrorist group planted bombs across American schools “in retaliation for the support given by the United States to Ukraine.” This is strikingly similar to a mass email sent to Texas school districts on Dec. 8. 

To assuage the fear stoked by this shocking threat, many districts increased the police presence around schools, “not because the threats have any credibility but because we know any type of threat can cause anxiety and concern,” says Hilliard City Schools Superintendent David Stewart in an email notice to the community. 

Bradley Principal Bill Warfield adds, “[We’ve] got to make sure that we’re at least making people aware, and putting them in the most safe situations we could possibly put them in…this was just bizarre. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Hoax threats are nothing new to American schools.Warfield cited his own experience with these types of threats when he was in high school, but the volume and severity of them has increased over time. 

“We would get those weird bomb threats when I was in high school. We’d get those probably once a year, where somebody would do that, and that was a big deal. But this other, new part, to be able to cause panic the way you can now with the internet and… social media platforms, it's scary.”

According to the United States Bomb Data Center’s 2021 Explosives Incident Report, the overall number of bomb threats have remained approximately the same since 2016, but threats to education facilities have more than doubled. 

Bomb threat breakdown in 2017. Graphic by U.S. Department of Justice. 

Bradley student Cameryn Gale (11) shares that “my mom was like ‘I’m not sure I want you going to school tomorrow,’ but I said ‘listen, I have two tests to take.’”

For many students, fake bomb and shooting threats have become predictable facts of life. While parents and children navigate this growing fear, faculty face the difficulty of responding to alarming hoaxes in ways that bolster the community’s confidence and security now more than ever. 

Bomb threat breakdown in 2021. Graphic by U.S. Department of Justice

“You can't not take the threats seriously, even if you know that there is nothing that can possibly happen,” Warfield states. 

Despite the concerning nature of this widespread email, school and life went on normally throughout Ohio as families and administrators become accustomed to frequent online threats.