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JEFF CARNEY
US campuses threatened after
massacre
April 21, 2007
By Allison Hoffman
A man who allegedly threatened a
school attack in California that would dwarf the Virginia Tech
attacks turned himself in, ending a manhunt that prompted school
districts in two cities to tighten security, authorities said.
Several schools cancelled classes
or evacuated students and at least a dozen people were arrested or
under investigation as a wave of campus threats that started soon
after the Virginia Tech shootings spread across the country.
In Yuba City, a 28-year-old man
told a pastor that "he had some sort of explosive device and he was
going to make the incident at Virginia Tech look mild by
comparison," Sutter County Sheriff Jim Denney said.
The man surrendered without
incident at the sheriff's department, shortly after his parents
called authorities to tell them he would turn himself in, Denney
said. The man was booked on suspicion of making criminal threats and
making felony threats while on bail on a previous charge.
Officials cancelled classes and
activities at school districts in Yuba and Sutter counties and at
Yuba College. Yuba City is about 55 km north of Sacramento.
Nationwide, many of the threats -
which spread in the time it takes to make a phone call or post a
message on the internet - referred to the massacre in Blacksburg,
Virginia, in which gunman Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people and
himself, or the 1999 Columbine High School killings in Colorado,
authorities said. Friday is the eighth anniversary of the Columbine
attacks.
A high school in suburban Chicago
was evacuated after a 16-year-old Schaumburg High School student
allegedly said he wanted to make a bomb and was found with gloves,
wires and drill bits. He was charged with misdemeanour disorderly
conduct, police said.
In San Diego, a web designer was
charged with posting on his own site a bogus threat to kill 50 San
Diego State University students, then alerting a TV station to try
to draw publicity, the FBI said.
Cristobal Fernando Gonzalez, 32, is
charged with one felony count of making a threatening communication
through the internet. He was being held on $US30,000 ($A36,000)
bail.
In Commerce City, Colorado, a
Denver suburb about 300km from Columbine, a 13-year-old boy stood up
in class and said he had a bomb, forcing the evacuation of Kearney
Middle School and the lockdown of 13 other Adams County schools,
district spokesman John Albright said.
The boy was taken into custody and
he told police where they could find "the bomb", which turned out to
be a fake, police said.
In Michigan, police said they
arrested a former Kalamazoo Valley Community College student who
posted internet messages praising the Virginia Tech shooting.
Officials closed the college's two campuses through the weekend.
Classes at the University of
Nevada, Reno, were cancelled after police received reports that a
man made threats referencing the Virginia Tech shootings. Michael
James Sheriff, 27, was arrested in Carson City on a probation
violation related to a conviction for carrying a concealed weapon.
Officials said Sheriff sent a text
message to a relative saying "the Korean is my hero." He also
allegedly told another relative he would be unavailable for the next
few days because he would be on a "mission," police said.
In Camarillo, California, a student
at California State University, Channel Islands, was arrested after
a fellow student reported seeing a note on her Facebook.com page
that said she planned a "school shooting spree."
Alisha Salazar, 18, was booked for
investigation of making criminal threats and was being held at the
Ventura County Jail on $US20,000 ($A23,939.19) bail, authorities
said.
School officials said her online
message read: "Alisha Salazar is going on a ... school shooting
spree! Watch out kiddies, better hide under that desk! hahaha," the
statement said.
Among other arrests and school
scares on Thursday and Friday:
- A community college in Iowa was
closed after a threat was discovered, sheriff's officials said. They
gave no further information
- A high school student in Federal
Way, Washington, near Seattle, was arrested after authorities said
he brought three loaded guns and extra ammunition.
- A 20-year-old man in Bismarck,
North Dakota, was charged with saying on a blog that the Virginia
Tech massacre was funny and that he had plans for a school shooting
rampage.
- A high school student in Fort
Smith, Arkansas, was arrested after police said he scrawled a
message on a classroom desk saying he wanted to "be a hero" like Cho.
- In St Augustine, Florida, a
14-year-old high school student was charged with threatening in an
email between friends to top the Virginia Tech massacre by killing
100 people, a sheriff's spokesman said.
Suspect's surrender comes too
late for Yuba, Sutter schools to reopen
April 21, 2007
By Matthew Yi
Sacramento -- Schools in Yuba and
Sutter counties were closed Friday even though a man who allegedly
promised to go on a rampage that would make the Virginia Tech
massacre look "mild" remained behind bars in lieu of $1 million
bail.
Jeffrey Thomas Carney, 28, turned
himself in at Sutter County Jail in Yuba City on Thursday night
after authorities from more than a half-dozen law enforcement
agencies conducted a nearly 24-hour manhunt in the area.
The intense search was prompted by
Carney's cell phone calls to a local pastor and his parents on
Wednesday evening claiming that he had an AK-47 rifle, poison and
explosive devices, and that he would "make Virginia Tech look mild."
The suspect also allegedly told them that he wanted to die while
getting into a confrontation with police.
Carney didn't say schools would be
his target, but dozens of area campuses were locked-down on
Thursday. That evening, county superintendents in Sutter and Yuba
counties announced schools would be closed Friday. News of Carney's
9 p.m. Thursday surrender came too late to reverse that decision.
Carney turned himself in
accompanied by his lawyer and his girlfriend.
Carney's mother, Marie Carney, told
the Sacramento Bee that her son was strung out on methamphetamine
for the past four months and that he had told her he wanted to die
at the hands of police.
"If they found him, he was going to
kill himself and take out as many of them as possible," she told the
newspaper.
Although classes were canceled
Friday, at least one high school's baseball teams planned to play
scheduled games. Yuba City High School junior varsity and varsity
teams were set to play against Woodland High School at Yuba City's
Winship Field, said Dave Morrow, Yuba City Unified School District's
director of student welfare and attendance.
This is not the first time Carney
has had a run-in with the law. Earlier this month, he was arrested
for domestic violence and was released after posting $20,000 bail.
He was being held Friday on suspicion of making terrorist threats
and committing a felony while on bail.
Carney's arraignment has been
scheduled for Monday at Sutter County Superior Court.
E-mail Matthew Yi at
myi@sfchronicle.com.
California man who threatened
schools surrenders
April 20, 2007
By Christina Jewett and Dorothy Korber
McClatchy Newspapers
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Jeffery Thomas
Carney, the 28-year-old man whose alleged threat to attack schools
in Yuba and Sutter counties closed down classes for 33,000 students,
is being held in lieu of $1 million bond in the Sutter County Jail,
Sheriff Jim Denney said Friday morning.
Carney surrendered to authorities
about 9 p.m. Thursday after a daylong manhunt had failed, and he is
being held on charges of making terroristic threats and committing a
felony while out on bail.
Denney said authorities spent
Thursday trying to track Carney through his cell phone, which was
last detected Wednesday night near Marysville.
The manhunt forced the lockdown of
Sutter and Yuba schools Thursday and their closure Friday. Concern
over allegations that Carney had threatened an attack that would
make the Virginia Tech massacre "look mild" was felt regionwide,
with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's staff closely monitoring
developments, Denney said.
State schools Superintendent Jack
O'Connell said at a press conference Friday morning that the closure
of the schools was "the appropriate reaction" to the alleged threats
and that none of the schools would lose state education revenues as
a result of the decision.
He added that it is imperative for
schools to "take every step possible" to protect students, and said
he had sent letters to all schools superintendents and other
education officials in California on Thursday, reminding them that
they are required by law to have school safety plans in place for
such instances.
Carney spent the day with his
girlfriend, Mona Holtzclaw, and was armed with nothing but a
pocketknife, Holtzclaw said, adding that he posed a danger to no
one.
"He's a teddy bear," Holtzclaw
said.
Despite Carney's surrender, public
schools in Sutter and Yuba counties were in session Friday.
Educators had announced late
Thursday afternoon that schools would be closed to allow police to
put their full effort into the hunt for Carney, rather than
diverting resources toward guarding schools and their 33,000
students.
There might have been few students
to guard, anyway. Frightened parents pulled their children out of
class in droves Thursday while police searched in vain for Carney.
With the help of state and federal authorities, local law
enforcement officials said they focused their efforts in Yuba and
Sutter counties, where Carney had ties to the community.
The chaos and fear here mirrored
scenes across the country as schools and colleges responded to
threats of violence. The spate came in the wake of Monday's tragedy
in Virginia, where 32 people died at the hand of a disgruntled
college student before he turned the gun on himself.
A high school in suburban Chicago
was evacuated Thursday after rumors that someone was going to plant
a bomb. A college in Pittsburgh went into partial lockdown after a
man was shot near the campus. Violent threats also surfaced at
campuses in Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, San Diego and San
Francisco.
Sutter County Undersheriff J. Paul
Parker said that Carney, homeless and reportedly a heavy
methamphetamine user, made the threat Wednesday night.
Parker said authorities have
telephone recordings of messages from Carney in which he claims to
be armed with an "AK-47, improvised explosive devices and poison."
"He said he wanted to do suicide by
cop," Parker said, adding that his department has had numerous
previous contacts with Carney. "He has been in our jail many times
in the past, most recently for domestic violence."
Carney's mother told The
(Sacramento) Bee on Thursday that she had no idea where her son was.
Marie Carney, a Yuba City resident, said her son has been suffering
drug-induced hallucinations for the last four months.
Police conducted an aborted SWAT
action at Carney's former apartment complex Thursday afternoon. They
failed to flush the hunted man, but they did alarm residents.
One of them, 19-year-old Jennifer
West, said she was sleeping when she heard a knock on the door about
12:30 p.m. Deputies told her to get her things because her apartment
was potentially in the line of fire.
"They told me if he starts to
shoot, it would go through my apartment," said West, who is nine
months pregnant. "They used the word rifle. I was really scared.
This is a week before I'm due."
At police roadblock nearby, Bernie
Taddy said he first heard of the scare this morning on a radio show.
He called his wife, who told him to drive straight to their son's
preschool and take the 4-year-old home.
When he got to the school, traffic
was jammed.
"It was crazy - they were backed up
for miles," he said. He picked up his son, who "didn't know what was
going on," according to Taddy. "When we got home, he wanted to play
outside, and we said no, the police are looking for a bad guy."
In a press conference Thursday
afternoon, Denney said the manhunt would continue until Carney was
found.
"Yes, absolutely we're concerned
there's a threat until we get the suspect into custody and find out
what his intentions are," Denney said. Meanwhile, he urged school
officials to take special precautions because Carney allegedly
mentioned Virginia Tech.
Educators took the warning
seriously on Thursday, putting more than 70 schools in lockdown mode
in Sutter and Yuba counties, and a few campuses in Butte. One of the
schools was April Lane Elementary, enrollment 590 and just around
the corner from the SWAT scene in Yuba City.
Principal Angela Huerta said
parents arrived all day to pull their kids out of classrooms that
were locked shut, blinds drawn.
"By about 12:30, we were down to
about 60 children," Huerta said. "By 1:30, we were down to 20, so we
just called their parents and told them to come get them. We could
not let walkers walk home - and we canceled all the after-school
programs."
She said her school will use its
auto-dialing system to notify April Lane parents about today's
school closure.
"The safety of the students is my
highest priority," Huerta stressed, minutes after her last pupil was
sent safely home.
Sutter County Superintendent of
Schools Jeff Holland said late Thursday afternoon that he and his
counterpart in Yuba County, Richard Teagarden, decided to close all
public schools today after conferring with police officials.
They made the decision to "free up
the time of law enforcement to search for and hopefully apprehend
this person," Holland said. He added that this week's tragedy in
Virginia was another factor in their decision-making.
Holland had said he expected
schools to remain closed today unless Carney was caught early enough
in the evening for parents to be notified. Carney did not surrender
until after 9 p.m.
Despite the threat, there was an
end-of-the day bustle as the afternoon wound down on Plumas Street,
in front of the Town Pump bar in Yuba City's old downtown district.
And there was some grumbling that the schools should have been
closed sooner under the circumstances.
Derek Wend, a restaurant busboy,
said word of the threat spread quickly in the small town. He spent
the first few hours of the day ascertaining that his two young
cousins were safe.
"I was hearing a lot of `why would
they let the kids go to school if they knew this guy was on the
loose?' My thing is, don't mess with kids," Wend said. "You deserve
to die if you mess with kids."
Nearby, Carolyn Bybee said her
daughter goes to Meridian Elementary, a rural school near the
Sacramento River. Bybee heard the news around 11, called the school
and arranged to have her older son pick up her 12-year-old daughter.
"I think I'll teach her at home
until this is over," Bybee said. "You never know where this crazy
guy is."
At the Mr. Pickle Sandwich Shop,
18-year-old Ryan Wiley said business seemed more brisk than usual.
He suspects it was the high school students who left their campuses
early.
"Everyone who has come in is
talking about it," he said.
But across the street at Panaderia
Bakery, Maria Velasco, 23, stood behind the counter, forlorn.
Normally, the shop would be full of kids from nearby Bridge
Elementary School coming in for drinks and cookies. But not
Thursday.
Late Thursday, Denney, the sheriff,
said Carney's parents called the department to alert authorities
that their son was en route and intended to surrender.
Denney also said he had personally
spoken to Carney to make sure he was "not in any kind of distress"
while being booked into the jail.
"He indicated to me he is fine,"
Denney said.
California towns lock
schools after threat
April 20, 2007
By Alan Naditz YUBA CITY,
California (Reuters) - Teachers locked classroom doors, lowered
shades and kept nearly 22,000 school children inside all day on
Thursday in two northern California cities after a man threatened to
go on a killing spree inspired by Monday's mass murder at Virginia
Tech.
Police patrolled public schools in
Yuba City and nearby Marysville 40 miles north of state capital
Sacramento after Jeffery Thomas Carney allegedly said he intended to
make the mass slaying at Virginia Tech "look mild."
Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui
shot and killed 32 people and himself on the Blacksburg, Virginia,
campus on Monday in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S.
history. The murders have prompted a series of scares at
universities and schools across the United States.
Local officials say Carney called
his pastor at the United Methodist Church on Wednesday evening to
say he was armed with an AK-47 rifle, improvised explosive devices
and poison and would seek to provoke a confrontation with police to
"commit suicide-by-cop."
"At about 8:30 a.m. we asked the
principals to put all schools in lock-down," said Nancy Aaberg,
superintendent of the 12,000 pupil Yuba City Unified School
District. "We just kind of felt it was a consistent across-the-board
safety measure."
"We actually had police at all of
our campuses," she said in an interview. "It was a generic threat;
there was no specific threat to any of our specific schools."
Yuba City Officials sent high
school students home early. Officials in sister city Marysville
across the river also locked down schools, impacting 9,700 students,
an administrator said.
Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties
canceled all classes on Friday because Carney was still at large.
The sheriff's department described
Carney, 28, as a transient and reportedly a methamphetamine abuser
possibly under the influence and exhibiting symptoms of
methamphetamine psychosis.
The Sutter County Sheriff's
Department said Carney has a criminal record including burglary,
conspiracy and was out on bail following a charge of domestic
violence against his parents, according to the Sutter County
Sheriff's Department.
His father, reached by cell phone,
declined to comment.
Carney now faces new state charges
of making a terrorist threat, Sutter County Sheriff Jim Denny told
reporters.
Court records show that two years
ago Carney filed for bankruptcy, listing total liabilities of
$20,718, including $9,674 due in child support. He listed his
occupation as personal assistant to his mother, Marie Carney, a real
estate broker.
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