By Olivia Jessup
Eastbrook High School went into lockdown and called bomb technicians on Tuesday afternoon after receiving two bomb threats via phone.
The school office picked up two phone calls around 12:40 p.m., according to Superintendent Brett Garrett. The school believed the calls were threatening due to the fact they were anonymous and untraceable. The school immediately went into a partial lockdown and called law enforcements, Garrett said.
It was the decision of the Grant County Sheriff's Department and the Indiana State Police to call in the canine unit from Delaware County to provide a higher level of certainty, according to Garrett. The trained technicians and canine unit secured the building, and students were able to go home around the usual time of school release.
The initial sweep of the school revealed a suspicious cooler and thermos in the junior high gymnasium, according to the Marion Chronicle Tribune. The bomb technicians X-rayed the cooler, but all it contained was water and ice cubes.
"It belonged to a student, but we don't know which student," said Sgt. Mike Moore in a statement to the Marion Chronicle Tribune. "Apparently they just forgot it that morning, and it was still there. It just looked suspicious, so we had them check it out."
Garrett believed the calls could have been made from within the building. The office secretaries answered the first call and received a one-word statement about a bomb. The second call was more specifically indicative of a bomb threat said Garrett.
The school couldn't tell whether or not it was a student who made the calls, but does have leads and are following up on each of them, Garrett said. During the lockdown, the administration took down the network, all Eastbrook students have "one-to-one" devices that have Internet capabilities, according to Garrett."We didn't want people putting information out via Twitter or Facebook that could be true (or) could be false," Garrett said.
Students remained in lockdown for several hours in supervised areas until the visual and canine unit cleared the building.
According to Garrett, the last time Eastbrook had a similar threat was at least twenty years ago.Garrett plans to evaluate the situation and prepare better for the future. He plans to meet with the administrative team and has already spoken with law enforcement on what they did well and how they could improve.
"We're not finished products here. We're continually learning. Hopefully, we will do things even better next time, but I was very, very thankful for the way everything worked out," Garrett said.
For Eastbrook students, classes resumed as normal on Wednesday morning, with a little extra security.
