Weeks after the 2024-2025 school year came to an end, several Northeast Georgia law enforcement officials sat down to discuss the spike in school threats seen in the region in the aftermath of the deadly September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith, Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Freeman and Hall County Sheriff's Lt. Dan Franklin all said there was a sudden increase in threatening calls, social media messages or rumors in the weeks after the shooting, with that continuing throughout the school year.
The months-long string of threats came to a head with a series of incidents spanning all three counties in late April and early May. Chestatee High School in Hall County, DeSana Middle School in Forsyth and five different schools in Barrow all received phone calls from people reportedly outside of the state of Georgia who were claiming to have placed bombs throughout the campuses and to have had people waiting outside to shoot anyone who left the buildings. Law enforcement investigations ultimately determined that none of those threats were credible.
While Freeman said the DeSana Middle School threat appeared to be a student of the school working with a child from Maine who he had met in an online chat room, Franklin and Smith said the Hall and Barrow threats had very similar origins.
"Based on the similarities between the details on (Hall County's) case and the Barrow County case, (they are) likely related. That suspect is using means to mask whatever number he's calling from," Lt. Franklin said. "What we found out was, similar calls came from the same number in several states, we had Florida, Texas and I believe a similar threat was called into a Golden State Warriors basketball game in California."
Franklin said Hall and Barrow authorities have been in touch with authorities in those other states to continue to try to track down the alleged caller.
All three officials said there were early indications that the threats were not legitimate, but they said they made sure to thoroughly investigate the campuses. Freeman said their search at DeSana Middle was extensive.
"We thought in the beginning this could likely be a hoax, but you can't take any chances," Freeman said. "We spent hours upon hours, as you can imagine, six bomb dogs searching a school is not a small task, it's a large school."
Freeman said there is always a process to determine whether or not a threat is credible before deciding whether or not it's safe for a school to resume normal activities.
"We immediately go to the source of the information. We track that down. A lot of times, it's 'well, I heard from Sally, who heard from Ben, who heard from Jim, who heard from Linda,' and we have to get to Linda," Freeman said. "We'll eventually get to, this is the person who allegedly said the threatening thing or posted the threatening thing...we do an actual threat assessment. There is a form and a scale where we look at the child's history, we look at what the threat is, we look at what the parents say, we look at accessibility to weapons, all these kind of things to score a threat assessment."
Smith said in the aftermath of the shooting, multiple students in Barrow County were arrested for making threatening statements about school. However, he said there is a legal limit to how strict law enforcement can act depending on the severity or veracity of the threat.
"Our parents are on edge in Barrow County...They want to know the juvenile that said it. They want us to perp walk them, put their picture on a billboard and have them expelled," Smith said. "Sometimes we don't find (a credible threat.) This young man is a juvenile. We can't put his picture on a billboard or in the newspaper. We can't do that. There are laws that govern that, and we have to follow the laws, unlike the suspects that don't."
Franklin agreed with Smith's comments.
"To everybody involved, just be careful what you say and what you put out on social media, because a lot of people will take that as gospel and it can get out of hand quick," Franklin said. "If there's a lack of information flowing, that's because, from an investigation standpoint, we have to maintain the integrity of these investigations, and we've got to make sure we're careful with what we release so that we may be able to use that in the future...We're thinking about when we have to take this to trial in a year and a half or two years from now."
All three officials added that while rumors and social media chatter can cause chaos, having a community that actively reports suspicious or threatening behavior to law enforcement is vital.
"It's not done in isolation. I cannot keep Forsyth County schools safe by myself, and I don't mean me individually, I mean the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office cannot," Freeman said. "Even in cases that were severe and led to arrests, it was students and parents who called that in. They hear it and they see it long before law enforcement will, and it is that communication and that trust factor and getting those students to understand that that is how they keep themselves safe."
Smith said that parents of students who make threats may also be liable if they know the behavior is going on and don't report it, they could also face penalties.
"We don't mind locking up the parent. We'll take you to jail too. We did that in the (Colt) Gray case," Smith said.
Smith said his agency is continuing to look to improve its policies and responses to continue to improve school safety, even as kids are out for summer break.
"We're never going to lull out. Our (school resource officers) are constantly trying to re-train," Smith said. "We're ever-watching our policies and how we can make them better to streamline for the communities that we serve."
To hear more from Hall County Sheriff's Lt. Dan Franklin, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith and Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Freeman, click play on the video above.
