By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Yorkville District Administrator Dave Alexander admitted Tuesday afternoon it’d been a long day.
Shortly after the bell had rung at Yorkville to start the day Tuesday, a teacher brought in a note to him that was found in a bathroom that mentioned both a gun and a bomb.
The school was evacuated and students eventually sent to Union Grove Elementary School. By the end of the school day, the Racine County Sheriff’s Department announced it had a 14-year-old in custody.
The preliminary investigation, according to a news release from the Racine County Sheriff’s Department, indicated it may have been a prank – which Alexander thought also might have been a case when he received the note.
“Things are working out,” Alexander said Tuesday, confirming that school would be opened as planned Wednesday.
Neither the school nor the Racine County Sheriff’s office released the student’s name or gender, and all the press release said was the 14-year-old was in juvenile detention.
After similar threats in Pewaukee and Grafton over the past week, Alexander was skeptical but cautious Tuesday when the threat came in.
“I’m the custodian of a lot of people’s children, and have to err on the side of caution,” he said.
Alexander stayed at the school while bomb-sniffing dogs and the sheriff’s department searched the school, and later got word that a suspect had been found. Students were reunited with their parents at Union Grove Elementary and sent home for the day.
No weapons or bombs were found.
Alexander expressed frustration at what appeared to be a prank, and pleaded that parents talk to their children.
“This is not a good way to try and get a day off,” Alexander said. “When the sheriff’s department shared with me all the resources they had to dedicate to this site, when there is a homicide suspect on the loose … and it was a prank.”
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