Wood County Sheriff Rick Woodyard, Prosecutor Pat Lefebure and Parkersburg Police Chief Matthew Board held a press conference in the Wood County Justice Center Friday to address the recent threats to area schools. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

PARKERSBURG – Two Wood County students were detained in a 24-hour period in relation to alleged threats of violence against their schools.

That follows the detention of two middle school students Wednesday and Thursday over similar incidents and comes amid a rash of school violence threats and rumors around the area and region.

The Parkersburg Police Department was notified around 2 p.m. Friday by the Wood County Board of Education about a message received on the state’s See Something Send Something app alluding to “an act of significant school violence at Parkersburg High School,” according to a release from Police Chief Matthew Board.

The department determined the suspect was a 15-year-old student at PHS who was not at school Friday, the release said. The suspect was located at a residence in Vienna and detained with the assistance of the Vienna Police Department before being taken to the Parkersburg department to be interviewed.

The suspect juvenile was placed in the Lorrie Yeager Juvenile Detention Center to await a detention hearing in Wood County Circuit Court at a later date.

“There are no other suspects, persons of interest or further threats involved in this incident,” the release said. “In addition, no evidence was discovered that would have enabled the juvenile suspect to carry out the threat insinuated in the message.”

On Thursday, the Wood County Sheriff’s Office detained a 16-year-old Parkersburg South High School student after a potential threat circulated online that afternoon. The student was not at school at the time and “officials had no reason to believe that an immediate physical threat was posed to students or faculty,” according to a post on the sheriff’s office Facebook page. The sheriff’s office responded because the student lived outside city limits.

“We will continue to research any threat that is made, whether credible or not, and see it to its finality,” Board said during a press conference Friday afternoon at the Wood County Justice Center. “Whether it is thwarting an actual threat that was going to be perpetuated or snuffing out someone that is just trying to cause chaos, they will be held accountable.”

Board said his department has received multiple reports of potential threats in the past week, two of which were found to be unrelated to the local area.

“One was found to be located in West Virginia, but several hours away,” Board said. “We contacted the authorities in that locality, and the other was actually in the upper Northeast of the United States.”

He said his department was notified Thursday evening by a Washington County Sheriff’s deputy about a threat made at VanDevender Middle School involving a planned shooting.

In response, he said police took immediate steps to ensure the safety of the students. The student who had made the threatening comments was not at school at the time, but was located and taken into custody and is now being held at the Lorrie Yeager Jr. Juvenile Center and faces charges of making terroristic threats.

Board said that there was no evidence of any co-conspirators or the student’s ability to actually carry out the threatened act.

“If you make a threat, even if you don’t plan to carry it out, but you plan to create chaos, it’s still a violation, and it won’t be tolerated,” he said.

A Blennerhassett Middle School student was taken into custody Wednesday for allegedly making threats. Just minutes before Friday’s press conference, Woodyard said, a sheriff’s deputy was sent to the school to investigate another report of threats.

“Social media is driving some of this,” Wood County Sheriff Rick Woodyard said at the press conference. “People are reposting posts of repost(s).”

He explained that earlier this week, there was a threat reported at Edison Middle School, but it was actually in Connecticut, not Parkersburg.

“So it’s adding to the dilemma,” Woodyard said. “We’re down to chasing something someone said who said that someone thought that someone heard. That’s where we are now with some of this.”

The situation was similar in Belpre Thursday, when the Belpre Police Department was looking into an alleged threat made online. It came two days after Superintendent Jeff Greenley notified parents via automated call and email that a potential threat had been reported by a student but determined to be unfounded.

Belpre Police Chief Mike Stump said Friday that that incident, Thursday’s and another report on Friday all originated from a screenshot of a post shared multiple times on Snapchat and other social media.

“Everything’s been thoroughly investigated; there’s no active threats,” he said. “Turned out it was kids sharing other social media posts that are going around everywhere.”

Police were out interviewing students until late Thursday night and had an increased presence at Belpre schools Friday morning, Stump said.

Stump said he’d been in communication with the sheriff’s offices in Washington and Wood counties and the post had been shared back and forth by youth around the area. He encouraged parents to talk to their children about responsible social media usage and said students who see something concerning online should notify their parents, school officials or law enforcement rather than share the content.

“If they see it they need to contact us, not blast it out over social media,” he said. “Any information they receive, posts they see, pictures, screen shots that may lead them to believe there may be a threat to a school system, they need to contact law enforcement.”

Board emphasized the importance of the community reporting threats directly to law enforcement, rather than spreading unverified information on social media. He encouraged residents to “be that inconvenience” and call 911 if they see something concerning, rather than posting about it on Facebook.

Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure, who was also at the press conference Friday, said it was important for parents to talk to their children. He said parents need to tell their children that they can’t make a threatening post on social media, even if they believe they are joking.

“They might be joking, but we’re not going to take it as a joke,” Lefebure said. “We’re going to go out, we’re going to pursue that to the fullest extent that we can.”

He said parents could also be investigated if it appears they had a hand in helping their child make those posts.

“Be sure that law enforcement is going to continue to investigate the parents, and if appropriate, bring charges in regards to that,” Lefebure said. “We have to gain an understanding that this is not tolerated in our community. And, ultimately, it’s going to take all of us. Law enforcement can’t do it on their own.”