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Threats on bathroom wall prompt lockdown at Danvers High

E-mail|Link|Comments () October 13, 2009 01:42 PM

By Jack Nicas, Globe Correspondent

More than 1,000 students were held in a Danvers High School gymnasium for more than two hours this morning after police locked down the school in response to threatening messages found on a bathroom wall, police and school officials said.

The school was dismissed without incident at 1 p.m., nearly an hour early and more than two hours after classroom evacuations began.

“The school was thoroughly checked and nothing out of the ordinary was found,” school Superintendent Dr. Lisa Dana said in a statement. Dana also cancelled after-school activities.

A group of local law enforcers who are part of the School Threat Assessment and Response System swept the building with dog units after two threatening messages, one on a wall and one in a stall, were found in a boys’ bathroom about 9:15 a.m., according to Danvers Police Lieutenant Carole Germano. Authorities would not give the content of the messages.

During the two-and-a-half-hour search, students and about 90 teachers were held in the field house, an old gymnasium attached to the school on Cabot Road, police said.