A youth has been arrested following threats made on social media on Thursday morning that forced a lockdown on the first day of school at East Three School.
“The schools became aware of threats on social media and initiated a lockdown based on their internal policies,” said Cpl. Matt Halstead, media relations officer for the RCMP in the NWT. “The RCMP were contacted to follow up on the threats. The investigation continues and one person, a youth, has been taken into custody.”
A post on East Three Secondary School’s social media page at 8:14 a.m. Thursday morning said the school was on lockdown. An update later in the morning at 9:33 a.m. said RCMP have “assessed the risk to East Three Elementary School and East Three Secondary School in Inuvik and deemed it safe to reopen.”
“The admin team at E3SS became aware of a potential threat to East Three Secondary School (E3SS) this morning prior to the start of the school day,” said Beaufort Delta District Education Council superintendent Devin Roberts. “The admin teams of both schools in Inuvik followed the Violent Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) protocols and worked with BDDEC senior management, local RCMP and GNWT Health and Social Services to assess the situation.
“The RCMP assessed the risk and deemed the school safe to reopen at approximately 9:44 am. To give staff time to debrief the schools in Inuvik will reopen at 1 pm.
“BDDEC is hosting Violent Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) training in Tuktoyaktuk Sept. 11-15 with Pat Rivard from the Centre for Trauma Informed Practices.”
Roberts said anyone interested in taking the training can contact him at droberts@bdec.nt.ca for more information.
East Three Secondary school ended its school year on June 22 under similar circumstances when an 18-year-old former student made threats to the school on social media.