Berlin High School Receives Bomb Threat But It Appears To Be A Hoax

(Update): 2:09 p.m. At noon Friday a Berlin High School student notified the school Student Resource Officer that they had a tip that a bomb would go off in a bathroom stall. 

The school followed a fire drill policy to evacuate students from the school and called New Britain Transportation to transport students home.

State Police converged on the school with bomb-sniffing dogs and at 2 p.m. were 99 percent sure that this was a hoax and ready to declare the school to be safe to re-enter. 

"We were fairly sure it was not a credible threat but we can't take anything for granted," Berlin Police Assistant Chief John Klett said. "The State Police is in the school with their bomb sniffing dogs so they will clear the school for us. Like I said we are reasonably sure it was not credible but if there is any chance, even one percent, we take it extremely seriously. The school did an excellent job getting the students out of the school." 

Klett said that the person who perpetrated the threat could be in for some major charges.

"Threatening, for sure, and then we have to look at the books to see what other charges we might put on him," Klett said. "We will do a thorough investigation and this person will be in some serious trouble. We had to evacuate 1,000 students and that is dangerous in itself."

Berlin Schools Assistant Superintendent said the time of day did not make the evacuation easy but the policies of the school system are clear.

"Our directive in this case is to make sure the students and staff are safe and we stay out of the school until we are given the all-clear to re-occupy," Benigni said. "I can't say enough about New Britain Transportation. They had our busses here in less than 20 minutes to take the students home."

When Benigni was asked if recent incidents like the Boston Marathon put the school on heightened security, he said "I can only speak for the schools but whether it was before Boston or after Boston our response would have been the same. We take every threat as credible and serious."

After school activities have been canceled for Berlin High School but Benigni hopes the school will be open later in the day for students to come back and get anything they need for the weekend.

"It was during lunch so some kids didn't have keys or backpacks when they were asked to leave the school," Benigni said. "Hopefully when we get the all-clear, we will be able to allow the students back into the school to get anything they needed that they couldn't grab before they had to leave the school

(Original Story) Berlin High School has received a bomb threat and students have been evacuated and there will be an early dismissal.

Authorities are on the scene, stay with Berlin Patch for more details.