Threats lead to closure of school districts in Connecticut on Friday

(WFSB) – Three school districts in Connecticut were closed Friday due to online threats.

Officials said classes at public schools in Bristol, Bridgeport and Torrington were canceled out of an abundance of caution.

Similar threats have recently occurred in several school districts across the state.

Classes in Ansonia were canceled on Thursday after a 13-year-old girl admitted to making a threat online.

On the same day, officers responded to reports at Norwich Free Academy that a student had brought a weapon. After a search, school life returned to normal for students and teachers.

In addition, school officials in Coventry contacted parents after overhearing students discussing bringing weapons to school.

In all cases, no one was injured.

According to I-Team records, threats have been made at at least 24 schools since the last week of August, and arrests have been made in seven cases.

Thanks to a law passed by the legislature several years ago, which Senator Tony Hwang of Fairfield County also endorsed, threats against schools in Connecticut are severely punished.

“It was a saga lasting almost two and a half years [to get this passed] “The project was initiated by parents at Saint Rosa Lima School in Sandy Hook in Newtown,” Hwang said. “What we heard from parents was the traumatic effect that these types of threats had on the school and how much trauma and upheaval they caused for the children who went to school after Sandy Hook.”

Anyone who threatens schools, churches and other protected places can be charged with serious threats and faces a prison sentence of up to ten years.

“Many of these acts are committed by children,” Hwang said. “Young adults who are unaware of the devastating impact are perpetrating a prank, but there are also people with evil intentions who want to cause trauma and terror in our community. This is not a prank. This is not a funny joke. We will catch you and you will be punished.”

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