BILLERICA -- Police want five Billerica Memorial High School students charged in connection with a threat found written on a girls' bathroom wall in November to pay restitution to cover the cost of the full-scale law-enforcement response that followed.
Sgt. Roy Frost said the cost, mostly tied to the number of police personnel required, is estimated at $7,000.
"This is going to be the standard thing we are trying to do when we have these unnecessary expenditures of resources," he said. "We have to take all threats seriously, especially when they are specific."
The threatening message, discovered on Nov. 30, indicated that a student would bring a gun to school on Monday, Dec. 3, to shoot fellow students. Billerica school and law-enforcement officials mobilized over that weekend and brought in the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council's School Threat Assessment Response System. On Dec. 3, the school's 1,600 students were required to enter through one door, passing through metal detectors on their way into the building and passing any bags or packages through X-ray machines. Police were set up around the entire perimeter of the school to direct students. Police presence was increased throughout the day.
Frost said the five students charged are juveniles, and therefore their names cannot be released. They have been summonsed to Middlesex Juvenile Court on felony charges. He could not elaborate on what led to the identification of the suspects.
One of the students has been charged with threats causing evacuation or disruption of school, a felony punishable by three years in state prison. The other four are charged with being accessories after the fact, a felony also punishable by state imprisonment.
Frost said restitution is not often addressed in criminal court, but can be part of an agreement negotiated between the district attorney, judge and defendants.
"We have checked with the DA's office on this and they are encouraging us to entertain the possibility," he said.
The cost of the response, Frost said, was covered by the personnel budgets of the Billerica police and those of towns belonging to the regional law-enforcement council. The equipment brought in had been purchased through a federal Homeland Security grant.
Billerica Memorial High School Principal Kevin Soraghan said he was pleased with how the police and school worked together that day.
"It was a great coordinated effort," he said. "We wanted to maintain as normal a day as possible and reassure the students that school is a great place to be."
Soraghan said the request for restitution sends the right message. "I think the message is that any threats out there are taken very seriously," he said. "But we have to remember that, percentage-wise, we are talking about a very small number of students
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