He wants to talk to every kid who attends every middle and high school in Belmont County.
He wants to warn them.
Chief Deputy James Zusack explained on River Talk 100.1 FM last week his plan to contact each of the county’s school superintendents in the very near future to arrange days and times for him to address local students about transmitting electronic threats against local schools. Zusack wants to tell them about the inside of a jail cell.
“I plan to tell them if they get a text or a message about a school threat, please show an adult and don’t share it. Show your mother, your father, a grandparent or guardian,” the chief deputy said. “Don’t share it. If you share it or add to it and then share it, we will find you. If you start it, we will find you because you would be breaking the law.
“I also want people here in the valley know that if a local law enforcement agency in another county needs my assistance on a similar case, I will provide it and we will track you down,” he said. “It all goes back to your phone, it’s something you cannot hide, and it’s something we know how to investigate.”
Zusack and a few of his deputies tracked down the middle school student responsible for an online threat against Bellaire Middle School two weeks ago, and his staff assisted Jefferson County investigators with tracing threats against the Buckeye Local School District. That particular threat stated, “Nobody knows me but were shooting up the buckeye local. We aren’t lying this time and were gonna hurt everyone. We have main targets on the 6,7,8 grade. We’re going to the elementary next. This is not a drill. We’re coming some day this week.”
The affected schools were closed for a few days, extracurricular activities were postponed or canceled, and other districts took “soft lockdown” precautions until arrests were made a little more than a week ago. Two Jefferson County juveniles, Zusack confirmed, were charged with inducing panic and have made initial court appearances.
“These young people need to think about what they’re doing because a threat like that causes a lot of problems, and now the students that have been charged are facing the penalties and they’re in a lot of trouble,” said Zusack, who will become Belmont County’s next sheriff on January 1. “It creates a lot of havoc and we’re not putting up with it. Period. Ask the two individuals we arrested how they feel about what they did.
“I believe our young people don’t realize the technology they carry around in their pockets,” the chief deputy insisted. “The convenience is incredible, but this valley has seen the havoc that can be caused.”
Who’s Laughing Now?
Inducing panic, if charged as a misdemeanor per Ohio’s revised code, is defined as “starting or spreading a false report or warning of a crime, explosion, fire, or other catastrophe.” It can also include “threatening to commit violence or committing an offense with reckless disregard for the likelihood or causing public alarm or inconvenience”.
The offense, however, can be elevated to a felony depending on the amount of money affected and/or if injuries are sustained as a result of an individual’s unlawful actions.
“What the charges are depends on age and on what the prosecutor wants to do, and then, as far as what happens in court, it’s up to the judge,” Zusack explained. “We do our job, and they do their jobs. That’s how it works when you’re taking care of the people who are breaking the law, and threatening schools and inciting panic is breaking the law.
“If the young people of the valley choose to listen to my message and refuse to participate in anything like that, then we should be OK,” he said. “I hope parents talk to their kids about this, too, and I hope it’s a topic in our schools already.”
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 417 school shooting have taken place in the United States since a pair of seniors killed 12 students and one educator at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Most recently, a 14-year-old shooter murdered four people on September 4 at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
The school threats in East Ohio were posted online less than a week later.
“I hope to go to all of the middle and high schools in Belmont County so we can discuss all of this,” Zusack said. “Some people may ask why we would go to the middle schools, and I’ll remind them that this time around, it was middle school students that put the threats out there. And I do have hope the students will go home and discuss it with their parents.
“We’ll stress that to the students, and I wish more parents would manage their kid’s phones more,” he said. “There’s some who have just given them the phones with no restrictions. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to know the percentage of parents who do that.”
