Bomb Threats
From time to time, bomb threats may be received at a school or an administrative facility. Although such threats are most often hoaxes, each must be taken very seriously and treated as though real. It is important that each school and administrative facility has an emergency plan for dealing with a threat when it is received. The paramount issue is the safety of the building's(s') occupants. The building(s) should be evacuated in the same way as in the event of a fire drill or a fire.
Following receipt of a threat, the recipient should immediately notify the principal or building administrator. Use of two-way radios for this purpose is not recommended, since others may be listening and the potential exists for real panic in these circumstances. Evacuation procedures should be initiated without delay. Then principal or building administrator should then immediately notify appropriate public safety officials.
In locations where bomb threats occur frequently, school officials should work with telephone companies to install technology that can facilitate attempts to trace threatening calls. In addition, since hoax calls are often perpetrated by students who are absent from school, the day=s absentee list should be examined carefully for potential sources of such calls.
While a bomb threat may be communicated in any number of ways, the most common means is by telephone. A checklist for gathering information about threatening calls should be located beside each phone and staff training should be provided to those most likely to receive such messages. The following guidelines should be considered in development of a checklist.
1. What to do:
A. Remain calm
B. Keep the caller on the line as long as possible
C. Get as much information as possible from the caller
D. Inform the caller that the building is occupied and that detonation could result in serious injury or death to innocent people
E. Notify the principal or building administrator immediately
2. What information should be collected?:
A. Date and time of call
B. Exact words of caller
C. Ask the following questions:
1) When is the bomb set to explode?
2) Where is the bomb right now?
3) What kind of bomb is it?
4) What does it look like?
5) Why did you place the bomb?
6) Where are you calling from?
D. Description of the caller's voice:
1) Male or female
2) Young; middle-aged; old
3) Accent; speech impediment; unusual diction
4) Tone of voice
5) Whether the voice is familiar and, if so, what it sounded like
6) Other voice characteristics
E. Background noise:
1) Was there any noise in the background that could help to identify the location of the caller (traffic, music, trains, planes, etc.)?
2) Were there other voices in the background? If so, gather information in "D" above for each.
F. The time the caller hung up
G. Name, contact information, and comments of the recipient of the call
Written messages are most often associated with generalized threats, but a written warning of a specific device should never be ignored. If a written message is received, all materials upon which it is written or in which the message is contained should be saved. As soon as the message is recognized to be a threat, further unnecessary handling should be avoided to preserve fingreprints, handwriting style and spelling, paper type, postmarks, or other possible evidence that could trace the message or identify the writer.