Tascosa High School Hit With Bomb Threat, Student Arrest

Lately, it seems we've had quite a few lockdown situations at Amarillo and Canyon area schools. Some of them have been accidental, some have been for reasons such as a police chase in the area of a school. The rest? Hoaxes, fake bomb threats.

Yesterday, Tascosa High School ended up with not one, but TWO different threats they had to respond to, and one of them put the school in lockdown mode.

Bomb Threat AND Death Threat

As we said, it was a busy day at Tascosa. It all started when school liaison officers were made aware of a threat where one student said they were going to kill another student. They looked into that, and it did indeed end in the arrest of a student for making the threat.

While the school was made aware of that, 911 received a call about a bomb threat involving the school. Now, whether or not the two went hand in hand, we aren't sure. The timing of it, however, seems like they could've been. The school went into lockdown, the APD bomb team was dispatched, and thankfully, nothing was found. Another hoax.

Swatting & What It Is

The hoaxes have become common at schools these days, and it's actually part of a nationwide hoax called "swatting". Swatting is when a call is made to 911 or a school stating there's a bomb, an active shooter, or a hostage situation when in reality there is not.

The point of swatting is to trigger an immediate, armed response and tends to be an extreme form of harassment. Many do it out of spite for a person, a business, or a school as a way to air a grievance or simply let their anger out. Obviously, this is illegal and will lead to criminal charges, potentially up to the federal level.