Castlegar Council Reflects on Response to Alleged Threat to Students

Castlegar City Council's most recent Protective Services Update reflected on last week's response to the report of an alleged threat to students.

RCMP had responded on the evening of Sunday, April 16th, to a report that a student allegedly threatened violence towards Stanley Humphries Secondary Students.

Mayor Maria McFaddin encourages the community to trust in the powers that be and ignore the online rumor-mill:

“…. Because something that may have not even been an issue got out on social media and turned into a very-very big issue and caused a lot of panic in a lot of young people that it didn’t need to do…. and I know a lot of parents…. So that’s my encouragement to the community is that we actually watch how we handle these things….”

Councillor Cherryl MacLeod says students were being pulled out of entirely different schools out of fear; something that a broader community announcement might help avoid:

“I just wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to sort of be in front of it and to put something out for the whole community, because I think you know kids at Stanley Humphries have got little siblings at my school or another school and I think the unknowing and the angst that it caused by not having it come out to everybody; and I don’t understand your protocols (and) I’m not telling you how to do your job….”

“And of course people are heightened, you know their awareness because of all the gun violence in the schools in the states right? So I just think this may be a good learning, or a good protocol to be in place in the future to work on something with the School District…. And let’s hope this never happens again because there were terrified parents and kids out there right?” adds Councillor Sue Heaton-Sherstobitoff

The Mayor and Castlegar City Council commended the hasty response from police.