OKLAHOMA CITY -
Following Friday's tragedy in Connecticut, police
throughout the country and Oklahoma have been overwhelmed by threats and rumors
of threats on schools.
Now, city administrators in Oklahoma say it seems
people are crying wolf. The threats and rumors have people wondering when all
of the nonsense is going to end.
"[It's the] they said, she said…that's the kind of
thing that you're hearing," Yukon city manager Grayson Bottom said. "You never
really can get down to a real threat."
Bottom says, because people are spreading the fire of
hysteria on Twitter and Facebook, his city was forced to send additional
officers to Yukon Middle School and Yukon High School Wednesday. Now, a large
city-wide response is planned for Friday.
"We've even got [city] employees [who] asked for time
to be able to go take their kids out of school," Bottom said.
Hours after the massive shooting in Newtown, Conn.,
police in Enid began to investigate
reports of students threatening to bring guns to a high school assembly. On
Friday, a Guthrie High School student
was arrested for making threats.
On Tuesday, a shooting near a Tulsa elementary school
put people on edge. A Moore middle school student
was arrested for bringing a duffle bag of weapons to school on Tuesday. On
Wednesday, it was the Yukon rumors that kept police busy and a threat in Bartlesville
that shut down every school in that district.
"The parents… and the community should send a very strong signal
that we are safe, we are secure," Dr. R. Murali Krishna said.
Krishna is a psychiatrist and president of Integris
Mental Health. He just published a book about how to cope with tragedy that
impacts communities. The title of Krishna's new book is "Vibrant, To Heal
and Be Whole".
Krishna says sounding false alarms is an unhealthy way
some people may cope with tragedy.
"Sometimes [people] react…and say I want to be in
charge of this kind of rumor and spread [it]… to see how my community is reacting,"
Krishna said.
The federal government reports that from 1993 to 2009,
between 7 and 9 percent of high school students were threatened or injured with
a weapon on campus. Most experts say parents should not be afraid to send their
children to school because, statistically, school shootings are incredibly
rare.
City administrators in Oklahoma say it seems people are crying wolf. The threats and rumors have people wondering when all of the nonsense is going to end.
