Santa Barbara Police Investigate Bomb Threat at S.B. Middle School
No Known Threat to Campuses in District
[UPDATE 4:58 p.m.]
Staff and faculty were back on campus this afternoon, after Santa Barbara Middle School evacuated after a bomb threat was phoned into the main office at around 11:10 this morning. Though classes and sports were canceled for the day, and students sent home, the Police Department bomb squad gave the all clear by 1:30 p.m. They apparently found nothing, said Darren Brews, the school’s lead for communications, but were looking into the phone number the school received.
Brews said everyone was out of the building within five minutes as they’d rehearsed in evacuation drills. They then walked down to the Santa Barbara Bowl, their neighbor to the south. “They’re very good friends of ours, neighbors, and within a few minutes we were all out and safe.”
Relieved the event was over, Brews added that the students normally had a two-hour gap on Tuesday mornings that they’d decided to fill watching the World Cup. Instead, they had to evacuate, though some of them were watching the match on their phones, he said. Argentina won against Croatia 3-0.
[UPDATE 1:15 p.m.]
Santa Barbara Middle School received a bomb threat over the phone at 11:10 a.m. today and immediately evacuated the school. Santa Barbara Police responded in numbers, helping to evacuate the children from the private school on Alameda Padre Serra and bringing in the bomb squad.
The students first moved to a field below the school — which is located in Santa Barbara’s Riviera neighborhood — and the police have moved them to the Santa Barbara Bowl, where they were now waiting for their parents to come pick them up, said Sergeant Ethan Ragsdale of the S.B. Police.
A bomb-sniffing dog and members of the bomb squad, which includes a robotic unit, were searching the school as of about 12:30 p.m. All classes were cancelled for the rest of the day, Ragsdale said.
[ORIGINAL STORY]
The Santa Barbara Police Department announced that they were investigating a bomb threat at Santa Barbara Middle School. “At this time, there is no known threat to our campuses in our district and we are continuing with normal operations,” the announcement said.
According to KEYT, students and staff at the middle school were evacuated.
While the announcement was circulated via S.B. Unified’s safety notice, Santa Barbara Middle School is a private institution outside of the public school system.
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