Authorities in Union County, N.J. placed a local high school on lockdown twice in the same day following potential threats to the school.
The two incidents occurred Wednesday morning in the Town of Westfield, some 25 miles southwest of Lower Manhattan.
Police responded to Westfield High School shortly after 8 a.m. “following reports of a potential threat through a conversation on a social media platform,” Capt. John Ricerca said in a press release.
The school was placed on lockdown at 8:14 a.m. to allow for investigators to assess the threat.
Following a “thorough sweep of the school,” Westfield officers deemed the threat “not credible,” lifting lockdown orders at 9:05 a.m.
During that time, other schools in the district also implemented shelter-in-place protocol “out of an abundance of caution,” Ricerca aid.
Approximately three hours after the first threat, Westfield police returned to the school to respond to a similar incident. This time, however, officers were following “new and potentially threatening comments [that were] coming from inside the school.”
Officials again placed the school under lockdown and district schools implemented shelter-in-place protocols.
The threat was again deemed not credible, according to Ricerca. The second lockdown was lifted just before noon.
“The sources of both complaints were identified and brought to the Westfield Police Department for questioning, and both matters remain under investigation in consultation with the Union County Prosecutor’s Office,” Ricerca said.
As of Thursday morning, no criminal charges had been filed.