Photo by Bill Petzold • Some of the nearly 50 parents who attended Monday’s meeting in the Caro High School cafeteria listen as Caro Police Department chief Brian Newcomb, far right, provides details about the investigation into a December incident at Caro High after administrators became aware of a student who created an alleged ‘hit list.’
By Bill Petzold
Editor
CARO — The concerned parents of Caro High School students had the opportunity Monday to meet with school and law enforcement officials to discuss the investigation of a 14-year-old male student who allegedly compiled a list of students’ names — a list some called a “hit list.” The incident was reported in the December 21 edition of The Advertiser.
Superintendent Bruce Nelson, Caro Police Department chief Brian Newcomb and Tuscola County prosecutor Mark Reene fielded questions from a group of about 50 parents during the special meeting in the high school cafeteria.
The way in which the school contacted parents was a source of disatisfaction for some, and Nelson addressed the issue in his opening remarks, saying that the school is bound by privacy laws in what it is able to tell parents.
“Although the events are not the focus of our discussion this evening, they did provide the basis for grave concerns about how things are handled or addressed here at Caro Schools,” Nelson said. “As a school system, we are bound in some cases by a federal law called Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and under FERPA the (privacy of) students who are under our care — as minor students — need to be protected, so oftentimes we can’t release names, we can’t talk about circumstances. And sometimes a parent will ask, ‘Well what happened to such and such a student?’ and that also is protected by FERPA.
“So often parents will say, ‘You’re not doing anything,’ while in fact we have taken disciplinary actions, we just can’t say ‘this and this and this’ happened. So that’s part of the problem with communication, because often we would like to know much more.”
Nelson explained how school policies are developed through the school board and described the process of dealing with issues that require police involvement. He said the school frequently revisits security practices, trying to find an acceptable balance between security and inconvenience to those who need to enter the school’s buildings.
The first question came from a parent who requested an update on the situation involving the student who allegedly compiled the list. Chief Newcomb provided the answer.
“From an information standpoint, I’m somewhat limited in letting you know exactly what’s been going on,” Newcomb said. “Just so you know, as soon as we found out this had taken place, obviously we take these things very seriously. … We immediately started interviewing or being present for the interviews with these students that were on this list. … I’m guessing that a good share of you that are here had a student that was on the list, or know somebody or whatever.
“My first concern was obviously for school safety; is there an immediate threat to any of the students of this school. So we had to ascertain whether that was (the case). Is the student in school or around school? Does he have access to a vehicle? does he have access to weapons? What sort of planning has he done? Is this just a venting process on his part, or is this something that’s really serious?
“We jumped on it right away. We were actually preparing to get a search warrant for his home, but we didn’t need it. We were allowed access, and it was apparant right away that the student neither had the ability to carry out any of the things he’d been writing about. He had not stockpiled weapons or ammunition or made any homemade bombs, any of those type of things. There was no immediate threat; he wasn’t around school, his locker was searched, no vehicle to get up here — he’s 14 years old — no way of getting up to the school. That was my first concern. Once we eliminated that, that he was not an immediate threat to anyone, then we started in with the other portion of it: dealing with the parents and of course the administration here.”
Newcomb said that Caro schools, along with the Intermediate School District and the Tuscola Technology Center, were among the most receptive more than a decade ago when he first began taking a hard look at school safety. He cited an incident years ago in which a student held his girlfriend hostage before committing suicide, pointing to the tragedy as the moment when schools began working with him in earnest to make students as safe as possible. Newcomb said that Caro schools did the things asked of them, including installing phones in each classroom and numbering the doors so responding officers would know their exact point of entry in the case of an emergency.
“If there ever was an active shooter here — if someone was legitimately coming in with the purpose of a multiple homicide — we are not coming in to talk,” Newcomb told the gathered parents. “As tragic and as brutal as that sounds, our only goal is protecting your students and the staff here. So, we’re not sitting on our hands, and in this young man’s case, my only concern was does he have the wherewithal to carry out those threats he’s been writing down on paper.”
Newcomb repeated that police do not believe the student capable of carrying out any of the threats, but are still looking into the matter.
“The investigation is still ongoing … we’ve seized things within the home we want to look at and make sure there’s not more to it than we may not know, but of course those things take time, take search warrants and whatever,” Newcomb said.
“This young man has rights too. It’s not that I don’t sympathize with where everybody is at here. what he did was absolutely wrong. I will tell you that there is in every case in these school shootings almost worldwide, there are a couple of elements, and they’re constant. There’s a mental health aspect, and this young man has got some issues and he doesn’t get along with other studetns because he’s different. Now, I’m not his parent, but my impression of him is that he needs treatment. … I’ve been doing this job for 35 years, (school board member and Caro PD officer) Paul Strasz has been doing this job the same amount of time, and we’ve seen pure evil. We’ve seen monsters. This kid doesn’t fit the category. I’m glad that he was caught now at 14. I don’t know what that would have been like at 18. If this had been allowed to fester, if this hadn’t been caught, who knows?”
Reene explained to parents that there is a protocol for handling situations such as the alleged threat, and that the matter is being handled thoroughly and professionally.
A parent asked if police found weapons in the suspect’s home, and Newcomb stated that yes, the family owned weapons — he described them as a shotgun and firearms used for hunting, hunting rifles — but they were locked up and secure when police arrived. Police made arrangements for the boy’s grandfather to come and take the guns so they are no longer in the house where the boy lives. Newcomb said they did not seize the weapons with the understanding that they would be removed. He added that the boy lives a considerable distance from the school and has no transportation.
Newcomb said that investigation has revealed that some students had known about the list for quite some time and had not informed school staff, and Reene added that students sharing information about any possible threat is one of the key components in preventing a threat.
Newcomb said that those with concerns may contact him at any time, noting that he had spoken with parents who had called him at home.
“As upset as everybody is here and worried for their own child, this kid is somebody else’s child, and I will tell you that while we were doing the search of the house, the mother came out and she was absolutely distraught,” Newcomb said. “She wasn’t angry at anybody here or anything else, she was distraught because she didn’t know what to do with her child. She wanted to get her child into treatment; she was beside herself with the whole thing. There’s embarrassment here, there’s hurt, there’s worry for everyone here, disbelief, denial — ‘I can’t believe that my son would ever think of those things, where would he have ever gotten that?’ That part was a tragedy too, so as bad as it was for all of you worrying about your child, this woman is scared to death for her child and scared not knowing what the future brings, will treatment help him. It’s worse for them because they have to deal with this now, and on some level at some time there has to be some disposition with this young man. In my opinion, I don’t know how he could come back to this school and have a normal school experience.”
A parent asked if the student would be returning to school.
“From the school’s perspective, we can’t speak to what disciplinary actions may be taken,” Nelson said. “Under normal circumstances … if any child is suspended from school, there’s a time when they return. If a child is expelled from school, sometimes there’s a definitive term the law says for certain offenses — 180 days, in other cases it’s a permanent expulsion. But in any case the law says we have to provide for (a student’s) educational opportunities, which includes, in most cases, an opportunity to come before the board and make a request for readmission. So to say if there were an expulsion there were a suspension, there’s processes both for long-term and short-term.
“The other factor the community needs to understand is that under certain circumstances, our hands are also bound by special education laws, and in the case of a special education student, if there is an offense which justifies discipline, we have to determine whether that offense is a manifestation of their disability.”
Bill Petzold is the editor of the Tuscola County Advertiser. He can be reached at petzold@tcadvertiser.com.