Clinton County schools cleared by law enforcement after reported threat

By Chris Fortune

The Clinton County Sheriff’s Office responded to Plattsburg High School on Thursday morning after a threat about a gun, but all buildings were cleared after locking down.

The sheriff’s office posted on Facebook that they had cleared the buildings multiple times, and the threat appeared to be a hoax.

The threat came through the veteran’s suicide hotline and said a person had an AR-15 in the bathroom.

“Because it is a reliable threat coming from the suicide hotline, we treat it as an active shooter and requested multiple units to show up,” said Sgt. Ryan Jensen with the Plattsburg Police Department.

Eight law enforcement agencies, including the local Plattsburg Police Department and Clinton County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

“A primary and secondary search of the school was completed, and nobody was found in any of the bathrooms. The search was done from top to bottom,” Jensen said. “We didn’t locate anybody in any of the rest of the school with a firearm.”

Once the search was complete, parents were able to reunify with their kids.

A ninth grader at Plattsburg was picked up by her father after the threat. She said they had to turn off the lights and hide, and she thought it was a drill until teachers began to barricade the door.

“Some kids were handed some scissors for us to be protected just in case we had to use it, and then we really had to start moving things around to hide better,” said student Chasity Belt.

She reminded herself to stay calm and keep herself protected. She hid in her hoodie in a dark corner of the room to make herself appear like an inanimate object while she updated her parents.

“I just kept texting my parents, my mom and telling them about the situation and making sure she knows what’s all happening so we can stay in contact,” she said.

The lockdown was lifted after the search was complete and school continued for kids who had not been picked up by their parents.

“Clinton County R-3 School District used a parent notification program to keep parents and family members updated during the incident,” the Plattsburg Police Department said in a press release.

Jensen said in addition to Plattsburg High School, there were five other swatting calls on Thursday throughout the U.S. with schools that started with the letter “P.”