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There have been so many threats to Rio Grande Valley schools in the wake of the Robb Elementary school shooting Tuesday that it’s beginning to get difficult to keep up with all of them.
The tragedy in Uvalde and threats locally have resulted in increased law enforcement presence and heightened security measures at virtually every school district in Hidalgo County.
Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra said the amount of threats is unprecedented.
“But the message is that we’re taking every threat seriously and we are going to file criminal charges on those that are responsible,” he said. “We are not taking these things lightly.”
So far ten individuals in the Valley have been arrested for threats at seven different school systems.
Four students were arrested at Donna ISD and six other school districts have since reported at least one arrest for similar threats, including Raymondville ISD, PSJA ISD, Vanguard Academy, Edinburg CISD and, according to other media outlets, Rio Hondo ISD.
There was also a brief period of heightened security at McAllen ISD Thursday because of a suspicious vehicle and heightened security at Progreso ISD Wednesday after someone spotted a toy gun.
Tensions are high and officials say they’re taking reports of threats incredibly seriously. If you go to a local campus, you’re probably going to see a sheriff’s deputy or a state trooper or a local police officer’s cruiser through the end of the school year.
The sheriff said his deputies are patrolling local districts across the county, particularly at rural campuses. Larger districts with in-house police departments are “all hands on deck” he said, and Guerra said law enforcement will keep local students safe.
“I have all the faith and confidence in those ISD police officers,” he said. “If it comes down to it, they’re going to do their job. I have all the faith and confidence in them. My kids were in those schools. Those police officers, they have kids in those schools.”
Nonetheless, parents are jittery.
Officials say the Edinburg student arrested Thursday evening, a juvenile male, texted something in a group chat that caused a person to become alarmed and notify law enforcement.
“They [police] went to the student’s house and spoke to him,” Edinburg CISD spokeswoman Lisa Ayala Hettler said. “He was in shock. He didn’t realize that anything was about to happen, certainly didn’t realize that a text message from a group chat was going to cause a problem.”
Guerra said rumors of threats are prompting some parents to keep kids home from school. Others are picking their children up early from school.
“This deal with the incident at B.L. Garza (Middle School), it caused a lot of concern,” Guerra said. “Here you’ve got a 14-year-old kid — and my understanding is he was a good kid — make a bad decision. And that bad decision is causing a lot of problems. But I fully understand the concerns of these parents after witnessing and seeing what happened to those children up there in Uvalde.”
Guerra encouraged local districts to revisit beefing up security, and expects that will wind up happening.
“This is a perfect time to reassess. The school boards need to reassess their public safety officers and their equipment to make sure that they have the latest equipment that’s available to them to make sure that they have the resources and the training that those officers need to do their job.”
Officials are also encouraging individuals with any knowledge of a potential threat to report it to schools and law enforcement.
“There’s a message that we all want to give out: if they see something, they need to say something,” Guerra said. “The Donna incident is a perfect example of how an anonymous tip can lead to possibly stopping a potential threat, so we need the public to help us.”
