Law enforcement officials say they must respond, even though so far all of the threats have been false alarms.
By: Rebecca Weltmann
As students and personnel were evacuated from Hillsborough Middle School on Monday, township police and the county prosecutor’s office responded to a bomb threat that seems to be just another bead on the latest string of false alarms in Somerset County.
Lt. Bill Geary of the Hillsborough Police Department said the middle school received a threat in a note and was evacuated at 2:48 p.m.
After the building was checked and it was determined that there was nothing present of a suspicious nature, personnel were able to re-enter at 4:36 p.m.
Much of the activity has been in Bridgewater and Boundbrook including an incident that closed down the Bridgewater Commons Mall last month.
County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest said it’s imperative for both the threatened sites and the police to respond to the bomb threats, whether they turn out to be false alarms or not, and it seems to be a trend for threats to happen in bigger spurts during this time of the year.
"It’s not unusual that as we near the end of a school year or as the weather becomes nicer that we have these types of incidents occur," he said. "Fortunately for us, they’ve never materialized into any danger, but nevertheless we have to take them very seriously."
Lt. Geary echoed his sentiments, stating, "At this time of year, when the weather gets nice, we seem to get more and more of these types of calls. All we can really do, though, is set up patrols in the schools, as far as keeping the patrol officers and school resource officers informed of the investigation. The best defense is an aggressive approach to any threat, no matter how minor it is."
In addition, Mr. Forrest said, it seems to be the trend that more threats come after national tragedies occur, such as the shooting incident at Virginia Tech that killed 32 students, including the shooter.
"Regrettably, we see increases in threats of this nature whenever there is something really big and negative in the media," he said. "After what happened at V-Tech, we did have a number of threats, which later turned out to be false alarms. We did have a number of those types of communications, though, that we had to respond to with local police in numerous communities."
Mr. Forrest added that both the police and prosecutor’s office would work together to make sure that the string of bomb threats in Somerset County were fully investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
"We have a couple of investigations that are still pending as a result of some of these actions," he said. "In the past, where we have identified the perpetrator, they are prosecuted very aggressively to the fullest extent of the law to show that there is zero tolerance for this type of activity. We’ll seek out the most severe sentence from the law."
Responding to Monday’s incident at the middle school were Hillsborough Township Police Department, the Somerset County Sheriff’s K-9 Unit, Somerset County prosecutor’s office, Hillsborough Township Rescue Squad and Hillsborough Fire Company Units 36 and 37.
Anyone with information regarding the incident is asked to call the Hillsborough Township Police Department at (908) 369-4323.