Ector County Independent School District investigated two school shooting threats Thursday, leading to one arrest, and another student was charged with carrying brass knuckles on campus.
ECISD Police charged 18-year-old Kevin Nunez, a student at New Tech Odessa High School, with threatening to shoot up the school Thursday, an ECISD press release said.
Another student had reported overhearing Nunez tell another student he would use explosives and smoke bombs while he was shooting up the school, the release stated, and said “when you hear two fire alarms go off you will know.”
Police charged Nunez with making a terroristic threat, a class B misdemeanor, and he was taken to the Ector County Law Enforcement Center Thursday.
At Odessa High School, a 15-year-old student was charged with unlawfully carrying a weapon in a prohibited place, a third-degree felony, after he dropped a pair of brass knuckles while in class, the release said. After the teacher took the brass knuckles, ECISD police was contacted and the student was taken to the Ector County Youth Center.
Later that evening, ECISD police received information of a rumor there would be a shooting at Crockett Middle School on Friday, the release stated. The police department’s threat management team worked throughout the night to investigate the rumor and found it was not substantiated.
ECISD Chief of Staff Brian Moersch said additional ECISD police officers had been assigned to Crockett Middle School and the Odessa Police Department has increased their patrols in the area as well.
These incidents happened just more than two weeks after the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., which led to the death of 17 people, and the Friday shooting at Central Michigan University where two people were killed.
Moersch said ECISD has had an increased number of threats reported since the Florida shooting.
“I think the natural assumption to make is that it’s due to the incident in Florida,” he said.
Moersch added that the Florida shooting hasn’t changed their approach to handling these threats, because he said safety of students and staff is the district’s first priority.
“We investigate every allegation or concern regarding safety,” he said.
