Minister, TTPS assure safety of staff, students at Rio Claro Secondary

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
and AN­NA-LISA PAUL

At­ten­dance at the Rio Claro East Sec­ondary con­tin­ues to dwin­dle, as staff and stu­dents fear for their safe­ty af­ter a se­ries of death threats were di­rect­ed to­wards teach­ers at the school.

The threats first sur­faced in No­vem­ber, when teach­ers were ac­cused of be­ing racist in mes­sages cir­cu­lat­ed on­line. The threats con­tin­ued in Jan­u­ary, two weeks af­ter school start­ed.

A pho­to­graph of a gun was shared on What­sApp along with the words, “You all fam­i­lies will be cry­ing very soon.”

The mes­sage ap­peared to come from a user named Kevin Ran­di­al, but school sources said there was nev­er a stu­dent reg­is­tered at the in­sti­tu­tion by that name.

Sub­se­quent posts es­ca­lat­ed in tone and con­tent. One mes­sage said, “To­mor­row is of­fi­cial­ly the day of re­venge. I am not telling you the time. I will be com­ing, all of you will be sor­ry.”

An­oth­er made di­rect ref­er­ence to a teacher’s ve­hi­cle, warn­ing: “Any­time I see that teacher’s car, I will lick down that BMWX3.”

School sources said sev­er­al of the What­sApp mes­sages orig­i­nat­ed from for­eign num­bers, named spe­cif­ic teach­ers and threat­ened blood­shed.

Ad­di­tion­al threats were post­ed on Tik­Tok.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the fear and pan­ic among the school’s pop­u­la­tion, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der as­sured teach­ers and stu­dents of Rio Claro East Sec­ondary School that they will be safe when they turn up for class­es to­day.

“These re­ports have been en­gag­ing my­self, the TTPS, and MP Nicholas Mor­ris. I can con­firm be­ing in re­ceipt of dai­ly up­dates from the se­nior of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gat­ing, as well as MP Nicholas Mor­ris,” he said yes­ter­day.

Alexan­der said sev­er­al peo­ple have been in­ter­viewed, and cer­tain in­for­ma­tion has been ob­tained.

“The Cy­ber Crime Unit and oth­er in­tel­li­gence agen­cies have been able to gath­er quite a bit of in­for­ma­tion,” he said.

Alexan­der said Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin, who is in charge of the School Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Pro­gramme, will be host­ing a par­ent-teacher meet­ing this week at the school “to ad­dress all con­cerns and al­lay fears.”

Say­ing of­fi­cers from the East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force will be re­turn­ing to the school to­day as part of the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Alexan­der said, “DCP Ben­jamin has giv­en the as­sur­ance that se­cu­ri­ty in and around the school will be in­creased.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, of­fi­cers will be prop­er­ly out­fit­ted and ready to deal with any sit­u­a­tion should it arise, and if con­front­ed.”

Re­as­sur­ing the school, Alexan­der said, “We in­tend to pur­sue a cer­tain course of ac­tion this week be­cause the in­for­ma­tion we have at this time does not seem to lead to any stu­dent, but a par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­ual and a per­son or per­sons, who have been af­fect­ed by a do­mes­tic sit­u­a­tion that has arisen.”

He said even though in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing, the TTPS will en­sure the school’s op­er­a­tions are not dis­rupt­ed in any way and that peo­ple will be safe both on and off the school’s com­pound.

Ben­jamin said he had spo­ken with the school’s prin­ci­pal yes­ter­day to con­firm the meet­ing lat­er this week and to al­so ex­tend as­sur­ances that class­es will con­tin­ue with­out in­ter­rup­tion.

A source, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said fear of safe­ty has had a di­rect im­pact on at­ten­dance at the school.

Last Mon­day, on­ly 80 stu­dents were present. Stu­dent at­ten­dance fell to 68 on Tues­day, 59 on Wednes­day, 40 on Thurs­day, and 24 on Fri­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, there is no per­ma­nent po­lice pres­ence at the school. One po­lice pa­trol was con­duct­ed last Thurs­day, and two ad­di­tion­al Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice of­fi­cers were as­signed.

The source said no snif­fer dogs were de­ployed at the school de­spite the bomb threats.

Re­spond­ing to the is­sue, for­mer MP Ma­yaro Rush­ton Paray called for ur­gent po­lice ac­tion. He called for a full crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion, in­creased po­lice pres­ence at the school, and clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion with par­ents and staff.

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath said, “The TTPS is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter. All mea­sures are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure the safe­ty of the stu­dents and staff at Rio Claro East Sec­ondary.”