What Happened: Threat To “Blow People Up” At HV School

State and local police, along with multiple K9 units descended on an Orange County, NY school yesterday after a threat to "blow people up" was discovered on social media.

A Hold in Place plan was executed at Chester Academy in Chester, NY on Wednesday after the school's resource officer discovered the threat on Snapchat. The multi-agency response was not only to search for the alleged explosives, but to determine where the threat originated from in the first place.

Bomb Threat at Chester Academy in Chester, NY

"Early in the school day today, School Resource Officer Perez was made aware of a threat to blow people up that was posted in a Snapchat group", began a statement from the Town of Chester Police Department. "Town of Chester Police Officer Dunlop and his K9 partner Lou were requested to the scene, as were multiple other K9 teams from within the county. K9 Lou and the other dogs who responded are all trained in Explosives Detection", they continued.

Hold in Place and Early Dismissal after Bomb Threat at Chester Academy

While the Orange County Crime Analysis Center helped assist in tracking down the person behind the original Snapchat post and K9s swept the school, students stayed in their classrooms but were otherwise allowed to conduct their day as usual. While no explosives were found, the difficulty in quickly finding the source of the threat led officials to make a decision to send students home through a special early dismissal.

Get our free mobile app

This is of course not the only threat recently made in a Hudson Valley school. Just last week, a threat was leveled at administrators at Wappingers Central School District. A shooting threat was also recently made at Miller Middle School in Kingston, NY.