Bomb Threat Forces Evacuations At 3 Chandler Public Schools

A bomb threat forced students and teachers to leave their classrooms Monday morning in Chandler.

Just after 8 a.m. Monday, police got a call from someone claiming he was on the baseball field, next to Chandler High School and there was a bomb.

“We though that it’d be necessary to maybe get the Oklahoma Highway Patrol bomb squad out here with bomb dogs,” said Lincoln County Sheriff Charlie Dougherty. 

School officials quickly took action and decided to send students home for the day. They set up two areas away from the school so parents could pick up their kids.

“They’re immediately turning around, they’re not going to work,” said Dougherty. “I mean, it’s chaos for everybody. It’s chaos for us, for the fire department.” 

The sheriff's office said they checked a suspicious white delivery truck parked near the school. They also cleared the high school, junior high school, as well as Eastside Elementary.

They didn’t find any evidence of a bomb, but said you have to take these threats with extra caution.

“It’s a very serious deal,” said Dougherty. “I mean, you’ve got parents that have dropped their kids off, and they think that they’re not going to come back at 3 or 3:30 this afternoon.”

Chandler is just one of a handful of schools who have seen these kinds of threats. Just in the last couple of weeks, three other school districts reported bomb threats including Lexington, Enid, and Ponca City.

None of those threats were found to be credible.

Chandler Public Schools Superintendent Melody Toma said in part:

“…While we have no reason to believe that this is anything other than a senseless prank, we will not risk the safety of students and staff...”

The sheriff's office said they’re still unsure who made the phone call. They’ll continue to investigate into why this threat was made.