The threatening anonymous phone calls to 14 schools across the country in recent days is "not a prank - it's a crime" during an already tough year of Covid disruptions, one Auckland school principal says.
The calls have prompted some schools to evacuate or go into lockdown.
On Thursday at least a dozen schools in Masterton, Kaikōura, Greymouth, Queenstown, Levin, Whanganui, Rolleston, Takaka, Geraldine, Dunstan, Ashburton and Palmerston North were targeted by threats.
Auckland’s Sacred Heart College was among the schools forced into lockdown earlier this month after threats were made against its students.
Police assistant commander Bruce O’Brien told Breakfast police are “currently looking into establishing the origin of these calls and who the person or persons may be responsible”.
“That’s going to take work from our cyber crime teams and potentially working with our overseas partners if these calls have originated offshore so we will continue doing that today because we want to prevent these from occurring into the future.”
READ MORE: Source of school bomb threats may lie overseas - police
O’Brien said the calls have “similarities” to the global hoaxes seen in 2016-2017 “where we saw a cluster of schools receive similar threats”.
“We’ll be looking into the possibility it’s the same type of threats that are being made in the last couple of days but that will include looking at, potentially, if it’s occurred domestically as well so we’re not ruling anything out at the moment.”
He said the person or persons responsible may “just really want to cause distress and disruption, which is completely unacceptable”.
“The operation to the school is completely disrupted, it provides a fear for students and teachers and parents, and it’s just not acceptable.”
Sacred Heart College's Patrick Walsh said the calls to 14 schools in recent days have caused a myriad of issues. (Source: Breakfast)
Sacred Heart College principal Patrick Walsh said 1200 students “lost a day’s learning in a Covid context where they’ve already lost lots of learning”.
“A hundred and thirty staff had to be sent home, 100 boarders were locked in the dining room for four hours, we postponed our parent-teacher interviews and a number of students weren’t able to play sport," he told Breakfast.
He added that some students required counselling “because of anxiety issues around the whole lockdown”.
“Keeping in mind, this is in a context where there’s increased gun violence in New Zealand, there’s a stabbing every day in Auckland and then people are mindful of what’s happening in the United States so a very anxious time for parents and students.”
Walsh said while the threatening call and the resulting lockdown was already disruptive enough, it was further compounded by the fact that students were preparing for Term 3 assessments and end-of-year exams.
“To lose a whole day because of this is very, very frustrating.
“It’s not a hoax as it’s being said, it’s crime and we do need to do our best efforts to find the people that are doing this.”
He praised the police’s handling of the threat to Sacred Heart College, saying they have been “absolutely fantastic in their response from start to finish”.
“They had a whole team working on it and if we were giving NCEA, we’d certainly give them an Excellence for their work here at Sacred Heart College.”
O’Brien said while police believe the risk level to schools is low, “we are taking this extremely seriously”.
“The schools will remain vigilant and they will call us for any future threats and we will take those seriously and work with schools to respond accordingly.
“We need to ensure that we get to the bottom of this so we take it extremely seriously.
“Our cyber crime team is working really hard to identify the origin of these calls but at the end of the day, we’re here to support schools and reassure them that we are doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this and hold the person or persons accountable.”
O’Brien called the threats “completely unacceptable” and a “massive disruption” to the operation of the schools affected.
“Students have had a really hard couple of years and this just adds to that and it’s just completely unacceptable.”
Walsh reiterated O'Brien's sentiments.
“It is not a prank, it’s a crime and it affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and it’s totally unacceptable to happen.”
SHARE ME