CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — A threat call to Unioto Middle School just before 8 a.m. on Tuesday, November 10, put the Union-Scioto Local School District on lockdown, held arriving students on their buses and brought deputies, police and state troopers sweeping the campus room by room — a response that ended with the threat determined to be fake and every student safe, according to the Ross County Sheriff’s Office as reported by J News Network.
Sheriff George W. Lavender Jr. said in a statement posted by the Ross County Sheriff’s Office that Chillicothe Police alerted his office to the threat call, that deputies were searching the buildings and exterior, and that K9 units were on their way to help, J News Network reported. Students arriving by bus were held on the buses at the elementary school parking lot, students already inside were locked down, and officers set a perimeter around the Unioto complex.
Union-Scioto Superintendent Matt Thornsberry told families that a potential threat to the middle school had been reported to the sheriff’s department first thing that morning and that, as a precaution, both the middle school and high school were locked down, according to J News Network’s reporting from the scene. Thornsberry said there had been no threat reported to the elementary school, that all buildings were secure, and he asked parents not to come to campus while law enforcement worked. More than 100 parents waited outside the campus during the lockdown, according to the Scioto Valley Guardian.
The lockdown was lifted at about 9:10 a.m. after officers swept the buildings, and the Ross County Sheriff’s Office determined the threat call was fake, J News Network reported. In a later message to families, Thornsberry said the school had been cleared and the threat confirmed as a swatting call, and that school would remain in session with no early dismissal, according to J News Network.
J News Network later obtained and released the recording of the threat call, in which the caller told a Chillicothe police dispatcher he was outside the middle school with a rifle and pipe bombs and threatened to shoot students — a threat investigators determined was fabricated, according to J News Network.
The Unioto response follows a series of school threats reported across the region in recent weeks, including in Waverly, Pickaway County and elsewhere in Ross County, according to J News Network’s reporting. Thornsberry said the incident appeared similar to swatting calls that have hit school districts locally and across Ohio, but that the district would let law enforcement finish its investigation before drawing conclusions, J News Network reported. What happens next rests with investigators: identifying who placed the call. The sheriff’s office has said more information will be released as it becomes available.