Small Town News

Student charged in bomb threat

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Business was back to usual at Conway High School even before a 15-year-old student was charged with threatening to blow up the school via a social networking site.

Accompanied by his parents and attorney, the boy turned himself in to police Tuesday. He was booked and released to his parents.

On Friday, Conway police received calls from two local television stations stating that someone had posted a threat to blow up Conway High School on each station's Facebook fan page, according to information provided by Conway police.

Police worked with HTC and Facebook to identify the source of the threat.

CHS Principal Porter Kennington said the school and police believed right away that one student was involved in the incident.

However, Kennington said that other than making sure the schools was secure over the weekend, Conway High School was business as usual Friday.

"We started on time and haven't had to make any adjustments in regards to the students," he said. "We didn't have any cause today to delay school."

Kennington said students did go through metal detectors, as they do every day, just to be safe.

Kennington said over the weekend, Conway Police and Horry County Police helped sweep the building for bombs to make sure it was safe.

"We were satisfied and found nothing," he said. "(The police and school officials) were convinced that there was nothing there to create an unsafe environment for the students."

This is the second threat to a school made via a social media site in the past week. Another student, 18-year-old Joshua Christopher Lane of Surfside Beach, was charged with disturbing schools and taken to jail after a police investigation into possible threatening messages against St. James High School on two social media websites.

Kennington said he believes the threat against Conway was in direct response to the threat against St. James High School.

"We think it happened because of what happened at St. James," he said. "Someone wanted attention. Why else would they post it to a social media site?"

Kennington said technology has introduced everyone to a new way of doing business, but the consequences of the technology haven't yet been realized.

"With the advent of Myspace, Facebook, other social media sites and texting, it has created an atmosphere that is dangerous in some ways," he said. "I don't think they (the students) really understand the consequences of their actions and it could hurt them in the future even more than it does now."



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© 2011 The Horry Independent Conway, South Carolina. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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