PLANO Some upset Plano parents say their school district dropped the ball after violent threats were made against Vines High School.
Police arrested a former student on Monday morning.
Parents who spoke with News 8 said the district moved too slowly in giving them accurate information. Police had the former student in custody before 6 a.m. Monday. It was more than six hours later before the district sent a letter to parents from the principal.
'We received no automated e-mails, texts, voicemails that the district uses all the time to let us know about a number of things,' said Shelley Miller, a Vines parent.
Plano police said they were notified about the threats just after midnight Sunday. They notified the school district 90 minutes later.
By 6 a.m., investigators had the former student involved in the alleged threats under arrest. Police said they didn't take any extra precautions at the school because they believed there was no longer a threat.
'Everything during the course of our investigation indicated this individual was working alone,' said Officer David Tilley, the police department's spokesman. 'We didn't see any threat at all that was going to be potentially happening to the school or any of the staff or students that are going to be attending there.'
But as school started on Monday morning, so did the rumors.
Word quickly spread that the suspect belonged to a gang, and his friends were going to carry out an attack.
'They're correct when they say rumors are flying,' Miller said. 'They're correct when they say a lot of them are untrue. But they could have predicted that and shut it down.'
Parents said their first official communication from the district came at 12:15, more than six hours after police say they informed administrators that they had made an arrest and the threat was over.
'The information that I got, got to me too late,' said Debra, a parent who asked us to identify her only by her first name. 'The PISD should have put out info beforehand and not waited until noon to do it.'
The district released this a statement to News 8 late Tuesday afternoon:
'Plano ISD values accuracy in regard to matters concerning students, and answering to the immediacy or demand for information is not always the responsible thing to do.'
E-mail sstoler@wfaa.com
