No suspect in bomb threat

By Brian Kelly • May 20, 2018 9:30 am
Police gather across the street from Bainbridge High School as authorities prepare to search the campus following a bomb threat last Thursday. (Luciano Marano | Bainbridge Island Review)
Police gather across the street from Bainbridge High School as authorities prepare to search the campus following a bomb threat last Thursday. (Luciano Marano | Bainbridge Island Review)

Bainbridge Island police continue to investigate the threatening message scrawled on a restroom wall last week at Bainbridge High that touched off a bomb scare that led to a school evacuation and also put nearby Commodore Options School on lockdown.

The bomb threat last Thursday prompted an extensive search for explosives on the BHS campus, and nearby streets were clogged with traffic for hours in the High School Road area.

Nothing was found following hours of searching, and police issued an “all-clear” for the area at about 2 p.m. May 10.

The scare started after a threatening message was found by school staff in a girls bathroom in the 200 Building at about 10 a.m. last Thursday.

Bainbridge police said the bomb threat was written in marker in the bathroom, large enough to be easily noticed.

Bainbridge School District Superintendent Peter Bang-Knudsen, in an email to parents last Friday, said the message was: “There is a bomb in the school and I have a gun and am not afraid to use it.”

In his email, he also asked anyone with information on the threat to contact police or school officials.

Bang-Knudsen also added he was “incredibly proud of the fast-acting staff at BHS,” who told students to leave their backpacks and things where they were as they emptied classrooms and took the teens to the football field, then waited things out as police combed campus.

“Days like yesterday cause a pit in my stomach — not only for the concern over student and staff safety but also for the impact and unease situations like these bring,” Bang-Knudsen said in his message.

“Among many things, the evacuation caused disruptions to classes, to AP test takers and led to the cancellation of the ‘RENT’ preview. There had been a lot of hard work from students and staff leading up to yesterday and I’m sorry plans were interrupted.”

Bainbridge Police Chief Matthew Hamner declined to give details this week of what the investigation has learned so far.

But who wrote the message continues to raise the big question mark.

“It’s still an active investigation,” he said.

“We’re still trying to determine who did it,” Hamner said.