FARMINGTON -- School Superintendent Bryan Law expressed his appreciation to school staff, students, parents and law enforcement agencies the day after dealing with a false bomb threat at Lynch Middle School.
Law said he received a call shortly after 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 7, from Lynch Principal Terry Lakey and Assistant Principal Budd Smith that writing on the boys' bathroom wall off the commons area indicated there was a bomb at the school.
"We take this kind of thing very seriously and made the decision immediately to move the students to the Freshman Academy," Law said.
Within a couple of minutes, students were coming out of the building to walk across the field to the former high school.
"Everyone did a wonderful job responding to the threat," Law said. "All in all, I couldn't be prouder of everybody. Considering the circumstances, I was relieved to see how well we responded. I'm grateful for their efforts. It went as well as it could have."
Lt. Chad Parrish with Farmington Police Department said a call about the bomb threat came in at 8:22 a.m. to the school resource officer. A thorough search was completed about two hours later, at 10:25 a.m., and the all clear given students could return to their school.
Parrish said the search included two K-9 units from the University of Arkansas Police Department. Farmington also received assistance from Washington County Sheriff's Office and the FBI office in Fayetteville.
Parrish said officers did not find anything suspicious but noted, "We wanted to be extra cautious."
Farmington police will investigate the bomb threat. Parrish said officers are looking at videos from a camera inside the commons area to see who was going in and out of the bathroom.
Law said custodial staff clean bathrooms every night and school administrators go through and check the bathrooms each morning. He said staff saw the writing on the wall that morning.
"You have some doubt when you read something like that but you don't have any choice but to err on the side of caution," Law said.
He said he especially appreciated the assistance from the police canines.
"Those dogs gave us a level of comfort in searching the building to make sure it was safe."
The last time the school district had a bomb threat was more than 10 years ago at the high school, according to Law.
General News on 02/14/2018