Schools peaceful after lockdown ‘Nonspecific threat’ spurs stepped-up police presence in Millinocket

MILLINOCKET – Wednesday passed uneventfully at the town’s three public schools despite a “nonspecific threat” of violence at Stearns High School dated April 11 that forced officials to put the schools in lockdown mode as a precaution.

Stearns “had more absences than usual” because of the threat, Principal Brian Jones said, but no violence occurred.

“Students felt safe, and they perceived the seriousness of staff and our public safety personnel,” Jones said.

More than a third of the school’s population of about 278 students appeared to have been absent, witnesses said. Jones declined to provide the exact number of absentees.

The lockdown was precipitated by school officials discovering “Blood Stained Hurricane April 11th” written on a boys restroom wall on Tuesday, Police Chief Donald Bolduc said. No new information about the threat has been discovered.

“We threw our nets out to see what we could find, anything that might have been a lead or a hunch, but we came up with no additional information of concern,” Bolduc said.

Still, Stearns and the interconnected Millinocket Middle School, at 199 State St., and Granite Street School, 191 Granite St., will remain in lockdown until Friday, with a modified police presence, as a precautionary measure, Bolduc said.

Four town police officers were at Stearns and students were marched through a metal detector and had their bags searched as part of lockdown procedures at 7 a.m. Wednesday. The searches resulted in one incident that Bolduc refused to describe except as irrelevant.

“We did have one incident with a juvenile, but it had nothing to do with the concerns of today,” Bolduc said. “We will be following up on that tomorrow.”

Police monitored the school throughout the day, students remained in classrooms during class periods, student cellular telephones were turned in for the day, and no students left classrooms unless escorted by an adult.

All school events scheduled for Wednesday night were canceled.