A 15-year-old boy suspected of using a fellow student’s cell phone to make a threatening 911 call prompting the lockdown of Canyon High School was detained within about an hour of the call on suspicion of making criminal threats causing fear.
Shortly before 11:40 a.m., an ambiguous, anonymous 911 phone call mentioning Canyon High School was received by 911 dispatcher.
Although no specific threat was made and no students were hurt or threatened, deputies with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station treated the call seriously and placed the school in lockdown.
“The threat came via 911 on a cell phone,” Lt. Leo Bauer said.
“We tracked that (phone) number and found a group of students. We started asking questions but we learned the phone had been absconded by friends who began playing with this individual’s phone.
“We were able to narrow our focus on one individual who confided in us that he was the one who made the call,” Bauer said.
The suspect was expected to be taken to the Sylmar Juvenile Detention Center.
Prosecutors with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office were expected to treat the incident seriously, Bauer said.
“This was a malicious threat,” Bauer said. “The seriousness of these (threat) calls is the mass fear aspects of them.”
Wednesday’s lockdown at Canyon High School was lifted in just over an hour after the call was received and lockdown initiated.
During the lockdown students were in their classrooms while deputies checked out the campus.
No specific threat was made and no students hurt or threatened, said Shirley Miller, spokeswoman for the SCV Sheriff’s Station.
“There’s no threat to the students,” she said at the time. “This is just a precaution.”
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