Internet threat leads to high school closing

KENNEBUNK – A threatening message received by a student through the Internet led to the closing of Kennebunk High School on Tuesday.

Police said the threat was received online Monday evening by a high school student who lives in Kennebunkport. The message apparently was sent by a person in Kentucky, and was transmitted by a computer in Cincinnati.

Kennebunkport Police Chief Joseph Bruni said his department worked with the America Online Internet service company to determine the identity of the person who sent the message.

He said he would work with police departments in Ohio and Kentucky to determine further action.

Nelson Beaudoin, Kennebunk High School principal, said the threat was made by a Kentucky resident who probably did not know the student or Kennebunk High School – meaning the school was never in specific danger.

The school, which has about 830 students, reopened Wednesday.

The notice that the school would be closed Tuesday was posted on the district’s Web site and announced on local television and radio stations.

Most students learned of the cancellation in time to stay home Tuesday morning, but 50 to 100 students arrived at the school and had to be sent home, Beaudoin said.

Tuesday’s scare interrupted a period of relative calm in Maine schools, which were plagued by bomb threats in the year after the 1999 killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Superintendent Barbara Pillsbury of SAD 71 said the district experienced its own spate of threats in the form of messages written on restroom walls in the high school, but this is the first time the district has had to contend with a cyberthreat.

“This Internet piece is new,” she said.

If the person responsible for Tuesday’s threat is a student, Pillsbury said, he or she could face expulsion.