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In the span of three days this week, four schools in Westchester - Yonkers Middle/ High School, Mount Vernon High School, Blind Brook High School, and the Yonkers Montessori Academy - were forced to evacuate students and staff due to unfounded threats that were reported.
Each of the threats proved to be unfounded, and responding police investigators found no credible threat at any of the buildings.
“Our schools are supposed to be a safe haven for our children,” Yonkers PTA members said in a statement. “We send our children off to what we believe to be secure learning environments to expand their minds and interact with friends and trusted adults.
“The events of this week have threatened and startled our community and threatened our children’s safe place.”
Yonkers Police Commissioner John Mueller added that “there is nothing more important than the safety of our children and we want parents and community members to know these recent bomb threats are unverified, uncorroborated, and that there is no credible information to believe that our kids were in any real danger.”
Yonkers Superintendent of Schools Dr. Edwin Quezada said that it was especially important to keep children in the classroom and out of potential crisis situations in the wake of the lost academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This reckless behavior is unacceptable,” Quezada stated. “These disruptive incidents are unsettling to our children, who have just returned to their normal school day routines.”
“Throughout this unfortunate experience today at Yonkers Montessori Academy, all of our students and staff were safe.”
As police continue investigating leads into the recent threats, Mueller vowed to apprehend the person or people responsible for disrupting the schools.
“We are working with our local, state, and federal partners, and have committed every resource, to identify, apprehend, and charge the person responsible for making these calls,” he said.
“They will be found and held accountable for scaring families with young children and wasting first responder resources that should be available to help others.”
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