Hilton Head Island High School lockdown lifted; no threat identified per police
A Friday afternoon lockdown at Hilton Head Island High School has been lifted, capping off a week that’s been filled with school shooting threats locally and nationally.
The school was in lockdown for about two hours after “a student overheard conversation among other students about possible gun violence,” according to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Bob Bromage.
Other schools in the Hilton Head complex — Hilton Head Island Middle, Elementary, Early Childhood Center and School for the Creative Arts — were placed on a modified lockdown as a precaution, Beaufort County School District spokesperson Candace Bruder said. During a modified lockdown, students continue to change classes throughout the day but they are more closely monitored and outdoor activities are suspended.
There have been threats of school shootings at six other Beaufort County schools this week, including at H.E. McCracken Middle School, where a student was arrested Friday morning and charged with student threats and malicious injury to property at the school.
Threats at Bluffton Middle, Beaufort Middle and Beaufort High, which were in the form of graffiti in school bathrooms, are still under investigation.
And the district sent out a notice Friday afternoon directed at Beaufort Middle, Whale Branch Middle and Whale Branch Early College High, warning of a social media post that read “wbms, wbhs, bms, and others I repeat do not go to school on the 13th, next Monday somebody is planning on shooting up the schools. Gotta email saying that somebody is planning on shooting the schools up.”
Similar messages have been reported in Georgia, Illinois, West Virginia, Texas and Kentucky schools in the past week, following a Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan that left four dead.
At least five weapons have been reported in Beaufort County schools this semester, including three firearms and a knife found in a Beaufort Elementary School bathroom earlier this week.
This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 1:26 PM.