Anderson County leaders host school assemblies to warn students about making school threats (WBIR)

Posted Date: 09/20/2024

ANDERSON COUNTY, Tenn. — Since Sept. 6, authorities and school leaders have accused students of making at least 30 threats against East Tennessee schools. Four of those students were arrested in Anderson County.

Dave Clark, District Attorney General for District 7, wants students to be aware of the consequences they can face if they threaten violence at schools. He helped organize a series of in-person assemblies at schools to warn children about threatening violence.

"What we determined was a lot of these threats were coming from kids — Anderson County kids. And using our partnership with the schools and the sheriff's department, we wanted to make sure we got a couple of messages out to the kids and to their parents in the community," he said.

Russell Barker, the Anderson County sheriff, said even though it takes a lot to coordinate, it's worth it to help kids understand.

"We've made arrests and we thought it would be a good thing to put a little prevention in there by actually going to the kids in all of our schools, our middle schools and high schools, and just having a conversation with them and to let them know it's serious business," he said.

The sheriff and the District Attorney's Office want parents to know their kids are safe at school.

"We want them to know our kids are safe. Anderson County has a fantastic arrangement where we have a school resource officer in every school," said Clark.

He said leaders also want students to know they can talk to people on campus if something's wrong. 

"We want them to let us know if they have troubles at home or at school, they're being bullied,  whatever might be causing them to act out in this way — we want them to say something so we can help them," he said.