The RCMP have yet to identify a suspect in their investigation regarding a threatening note found at Skaha Middle School last week.
“Our message is hey, we just want to help somebody out here. If they’ve truly just made a mistake and need a hand, then as a community we will come together with those assists to help them. It’s not like I just want to throw somebody in jail. That’s not the answer here,” said superintendent of the RCMP Kevin Hewco.
Over 200 parents gathered at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre on Feb. 22 for a community meeting regarding the threatening letter found last week at Skaha Middle School.
The meeting was a collaboration with the RCMP and the Okanagan Skaha and Okanagan-Similkameen school districts.
“We are confident there is no immediate threat to our students, however we want to assure you that we take the safety of our students and staff very seriously,” Wendy Hyer, superintendent for School District 67, said.
Hyer was joined by Don MacIntyre, director of instruction and curriculum for School District 67, Hewco and Staff Sgt. Kurt Lozinski from the RCMP.
Hewco applauded the community engagement and the turnout at this meeting and one that occurred earlier that day in Okanagan Falls.
“Here we have someone who someone knows out there, someone knows this person. It might be a youth, might be an adult, a young adult. Someone somewhere knows something. That’s the critical piece for us,” Hewco said.
Staff Sgt. Kurt Lozinski was in charge of the investigation as it unfolded last week. On Feb. 18 around 9:30 a.m. the RCMP received a phone call from Skaha Middle School regarding the discovery of letters of a threatening nature found on the school grounds.
“We continue to get leads, we chase down those leads to the end,” Lozinski said. “We’re really no further ahead to identifying who the author of this letter is. That could speak volumes as to whether it was fictitious at the beginning, or if someone involved in this has gone underground.”
The theme of the discussion was communication, something Derek Hurst, father of two daughters enrolled in the school district and chair of the District 67 parent advisory council, feels is of utmost importance in incidents like this one.
“The bottom line that I’ve heard entirely is to communicate. Whether it’s the district communicating with the kids, the schools communicating with the kids, the district communicating with parents,” Hurst said.
“Don’t put your head in the sand. Make sure you’re talking to your kids and know what they are doing online and offline. Make sure that they understand that stuff in this day and age can become much bigger than you ever anticipated it to be.”
Hurst echoed Hewco’s advice during the discussion with parents.
“Go home and talk to your kids. Make sure they are alive to this. I defer to the wisdom of the educator to ensure are children aren’t scared and (we) don’t start that culture of fear. It’s 2015 we have to deal with these challenges,” Hewco said.
“Worst case scenario we don’t catch this bad guy or girl. Then what? Well, we’ll learn from this, we’ll work better together and we’ll keep engaged with each other.”
After the discovery of the letter on Feb. 18, the RCMP asked the school district to give the investigating officers a couple of hours before making the information public.
“There was no use in putting the letter out and creating a buzz if we could have solved it in the first little while,” Lozinski said.
Eight detectives were working on the case at a given time and Lozinski said the RCMP immediately deployed a police presence in four of the district’s schools.
Lozinski said the RCMP chased down any of the obvious leads from the information in the note.
“We weighed the pros and cons of disseminating this letter out to the public and at that time we felt that the need was better than the spin off,” Lozinski said.
The RCMP will maintain a presence at School District 67 schools for the remainder of this week. There will be no locker or backpack checks at the schools.