Nowra High School was placed under police guard on Tuesday morning, after a 16-year-old boy issued a violent social media threat to students and teachers.
In a Facebook post on Monday night, the boy – who is not enrolled at the school – posted a picture of a dog holding a machine gun with the caption: “I’m going to murder everyone at Nowra High tomorrow, don’t come to school tomorrow”.
Parents reported the threat to police, who tracked down the boy and placed the school into “lockout” until they lowered the threat level for students and staff.
“If members of the public do come across these things, report them to the police immediately.”
On Tuesday morning, the school was quick to allay fears of an attack, reassuring parents and students through its Facebook page that police had been contacted and school would be “operational as normal today”.
“The [Facebook] post which included a threat to students and staff has been reported to police,” the school advised on Tuesday.
“The school and police are taking this matter seriously. There will be steps in place to keep the students safe, but we are not posting any specifics to Facebook.”
A number of worried parents said on the post that they planned to keep their children home from school. However, the school said most students attended.
“The school should be automatically closed,” Joanne Wright wrote. “Students lives have been threatened. I know my child is definately NOT going...!!!”
But another parent, Michelle Lord wrote that the police and school “have done a wonderful job in reassuring me when I phoned and had questions”.
“Very worrying situation for all our kids to deal with,” she said.
“They should never have to go to school in fear.”
Nowra police duty officer Chief Inspector Steve Johnson said on Tuesday that police had received a number of calls about the Facebook post.
“Obviously when things like this are posted on social media there’s the propensity for people to get scared really quickly,” he said.
“If members of the public do come across these things, report them to the police immediately.”
Police said the boy had been under supervision since they were alerted to the threat.
The also said Sydney-based officers launched an investigation to identify the source of the threat, and determine whether or not the boy’s account was hacked.
A Department of Education spokeswoman said classes and routines were not affected.
School principal Angela Byron addressed students when the lockout was lifted.
Chief Inspector Johnson said police had been treating the cyber threat seriously.
The offence of using a carriage service to make a threat carries a maximum penalty of three years in jail, and a maximum fine of $19,800 for a person.
