Dougherty County high schools receive eight bomb threats in just three days

ALBANY — Prior to the start of Monday night’s meeting of the Dougherty County School Board, Assistant Superintendent of Support Services Jack Willis gave the board an update on recent bomb threats called into Dougherty, Monroe and Albany high schools since Thursday of last week.

The calls began at Dougherty with two on Thursday and two on Friday. Monday saw one each at Monroe and Albany and three at Dougherty for a total of eight calls over that three-day period. Each call required the evacuation of the schools, calls to the Albany Fire Department and bomb-sniffing dogs to check the buildings.

No bombs were found.

We called law enforcement after the calls began and told them we needed some help,” a visibly angry Willis told the board. “These calls are disrupting education in our high schools and we have to have a high-level response.

Willis said officers with the school system police and Albany Police Department are conducting a thorough investigation of the calls, adding he believes one of the calls originated from inside one of the schools.

“We’ve called AT&T and they are going to place tracking devices in the schools’ phone systems,” he said. “When we catch the person or persons who made these calls, and we will, we plan on charging them with making terroristic threats. You can’t tamper with our school system.

DCSS Superintendent Butch Mosely echoed Willis’ outrage.

“When we catch the people we are going to prosecute them to the full extent of the law, Mosely said. “These calls are not pranks. They are dangerous, disruptive to our schools and will not be tolerated.”

Willis added that if the local investigation yielded no progress in the next couple of days, school officials would ask the Department of Homeland Security for assistance.

School officials said there were no threats called in Tuesday.