A text message was sent out late Thursday evening as a “general social media threat” in regards to the Cortland Enlarged City School District, according to City of Cortland Detective Lieutenant Mike Strangeway Friday morning.
“We’re taking precautions on it and taking it seriously,” Strangeway said. “We have officers at the school this morning patrolling around all Cortland schools.”
A police vehicle was parked outside Randall school this morning. (Cortland Voice photo)
Strangeway noted City police had a similar situation “weeks ago,” adding that this message was “not local” and a “false report.” It is unclear if the text message Thursday evening was local or not.
“We have no reason to believe there’s any validity to it,” Strangeway said of the text sent late Thursday evening.
Community members were discussing a screenshot of an image that was uploaded to Facebook. It said “People from Cortland, Moravia, Groton and Auburn…don’t go to school tomorrow! There (are) threats of shootings going around; just stay home guys.”
When shown a screenshot of one of the threats, Strangeway said “That’s a different one. There are several circulating around the state; all similar in nature.”
Strangeway noted the investigation with the text message sent late Thursday evening is ongoing.
“We’re trying to determine the origin of the text message,” he added.
This story for The Cortland Voice is developing and could be updated throughout the day.
