Boy suspended after alleged threats
Danette Goulet
CORONA DEL MAR - A ninth-grade boy at Corona del Mar High School was
taken into police custody last week after allegedly threatening a female
classmate.
The student was charged with making “terrorist threats,” said Sgt.
Steve Shulman of the Newport Beach Police Department. “Terrorist threats”
is legal language meaning a threat that could cause harm to another.
A teacher allegedly overheard the student making the threats to the
girl in class on Thursday and sent him to the vice principal, said Supt.
Robert Barbot.
“There was a ninth grade kid who made some comments in a class to a
young lady, angry comments,” Barbot said. “The principal talked to him
and we took a hard-line position. The child was suspended for five days
pending further investigation.”
While the boy did not deny making the comments, Barbot said, each
party had a different take on what happened.
“The kid’s interpretation of what he had done was very different than
the young lady’s,” he said.
Both police and school officials are continuing to investigate what
happened. Police will turn the case over to the juvenile courts, Shulman
said.
While school and district officials continue to meet with the child’s
parents, they do not intend for him to return to Corona del Mar, Barbot
said.
The incident is the latest in a string of threats of violence in
Newport-Mesa Unified schools and schools throughout the country.
Just weeks ago two other Corona del Mar students were suspended for
allegedly making milder threats.
A seventh-grade student was suspended from the school after allegedly
drawing a picture of a teacher with an arrow through it in an art class.
The next day a second student was suspended after officials heard reports
of him allegedly making threats.
Both of these incidents followed closely on the heels of 15-year-old
Charles Andrew Williams allegedly opening fire on classmates, killing two
students and wounding 13 others at Santiago High School in Santee last
month.
Newport-Mesa school officials said they have to treat each and every
threat as a serious one, especially following the Santee shooting.
The ninth-grader’s suspension also comes after the school board voted
in a new district student conduct policy that says no violence, threats,
bullying or intimidation will be tolerated.
That policy came after a group of outraged parents from Corona del Mar
demanded action following an incident at the school last spring in which
a 13-year-old boy was choked by a classmate until he lost consciousness.
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