Large task force investigating school threats

Probe involves six municipalities

By: Dick Brinster
   Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini said he hopes the size of a task force investigating letters threatening violence at East Windsor Regional and other school districts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will result in a quick arrest.
   But he offers no predictions and will not discuss details of a probe involving police from six municipalities, investigators from prosecutors’ offices in four counties, state police on both sides of the Delaware River and the FBI.
   "We have multiple agencies and resources pulling together collectively that we hope will enhance our ability to solve this case," Mr. Bocchini told the Herald on Wednesday.
   "That’s quite a task force," he added.
   A week earlier, letters began arriving in East Windsor and other locations threatening violence akin to what happened last month, when five children were slain by a gunman who then killed himself in a one-room Amish school near Lancaster, Pa.
   "We are going to take a walk through one of your elementary schools," said the letters, which also were mailed to the Herald and the Times of Trenton. "It’s going to be Amish School House Week."
   The letters prompted East Windsor Schools Superintendent Ron Bolandi to close all district schools on Election Day.
   Mr. Bocchini also wouldn’t discuss the authenticity of the name of the letter sender, who called himself Dick Lewis. Letters also threatened violence at schools in Middletown Township, Milford Township and three districts in Bucks County, Pa.
   Asked if he is somewhat comforted by history showing that mass murders such as the one at the tower at the University of Texas and the Columbine massacres were not preceded by warnings, Mr. Bocchini said "an optimist could take solace from that."
   But he said he can’t afford to take that approach.
   "It’s the post-Columbine era," he said, referring to the 1999 massacre in Colorado, when two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 24 other people before killing themselves. "You have to be very sensitive and very cautious.
   "You have to treat everything as a potential reality even though in your own mind you may not think it’s a likelihood. You can’t afford that luxury."
   Mr. Bocchini said all law enforcement can do is line up its resources and treat each threat very seriously.
   "In the end you hope you were wrong, and if you’re right, you hope to prevent it before it occurs," he said.
   Students returned to classes Wednesday in the East Windsor district. Superintendent Bolandi, in a message earlier to parents posted on the district’s Web site, said the safety of nearly 5,000 students was of major concern.
   "I cannot control the flow of strangers in our buildings on Election Day even though I have been assured of extra police presence," Mr. Bolandi said in his message. "I appreciate the offer of increased security, but I cannot control strangers in our buildings which makes me extremely uneasy."
   Meanwhile, the president of Hightstown High School’s chapter of the National Honor Society, said she thinks the student body is taking the threats pretty much in stride.
   "The threat has not changed the mood of the students in my perspective, but has just raised more awareness in that we have heightened security," Monika Mackow said. "I feel very safe in school and do not worry about the threat much.
   "Although the thought is always in the back of my mind, I am comfortable to say Hightstown is doing an excellent job in making the situation as calm and composed as it can be. We have security at the entrances and police officers at the high school during the entire day."
   Mr. Bolandi noted to parents on the district Web site that he was responding to "your overwhelming concern" regarding school security on Election Day.
   He also criticized the use of schools as balloting places.
   "Elections are open public events, and I have no jurisdiction to manage the flow of people in and out of the buildings," he wrote. "This is a prime example of why schools should not be used for elections."
   East Windsor Police Chief William Spain said last week that an officer and a patrol unit had been stationed at each of the district’s six schools, including its four elementary buildings. Chief Spain said a threat, received in a letter to the township Municipal Court staff on Nov. 1, did not identify which of the district’s schools was the target.
   A similar letter, of four handwritten sentences on lined notebook paper, was received at the Herald office on Oct. 2 in an envelope with a Trenton postmark. It contended that the writer had been "harassed" by an East Windsor police officer identified with a badge number "because of our race. Racial profiling will stop," it continued.