PALMER -- A 14-year-old Colony High School student was arrested in his Wasilla home Monday and charged with making terroristic threats against the school, according to Alaska State Troopers.
The student was booked into the Mat-Su Youth Facility on two counts of terroristic threats, troopers report.
Those threats, which were discovered Thursday on a bathroom wall at the school, warned of a shooting Wednesday at the school. They were the most recent in a string of similar threats lodged against the school in recent months.
Three were discovered in mid-October written on the walls of restroom stalls in the school. One warned of a school shooting on a specified date; the other two were more general threats of harm, according to Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District officials.
Another restroom wall threat against Colony appeared in November in a public restroom in Downtown Palmer, this one warning that a bomb would go off at the school "today," though which "today" wasn't specified, according to troopers.
And one threat of violence was made Oct. 23 over the Internet in an online chat session. A 16-year-old Colony student was arrested Oct. 26 and charged with making terroristic threats against the school in connection with that incident, according to troopers.
Deena Paramo, assistant superintendent of Mat-Su schools, said none of the threats appear to be related. Each was most likely a prank or an attempt by students to get out of school, she said.
But the pranks have serious consequences, she said. The October threats caused such a panic among Colony students and parents that nearly half the student body stayed home Oct. 24, the target date.
The latest threats have caused little stir, but each is reported to the troopers and investigated as a crime, Paramo said.
"We will never second-guess it. We will always follow through," she said.
Monday's arrest came after the school launched its own investigation into last week's threats, troopers report. Teachers collected writing samples from all the students and then compared those samples to the writing on the bathroom wall, according to troopers.
"A 14-year-old Wasilla male was identified as the writer for both comments left (Thursday)," according to troopers.
That student now faces felony charges as well as academic suspension or expulsion, Paramo said.
"Different things happen to kids that really they never wanted," she said. "This is serious stuff."
Find Becky Stoppa online at adn.com/contact/bstoppa or call her in Wasilla at 907-352-6708.
