Third Arrest At Horizon Middle School, Parents Get Letter Explaining First Two

By Marshall Zelinger

COLORADO SPRINGS – A 14-year old boy admits to a teacher he wants to shoot or kill people at Horizon Middle School. It’s the third time in the last week and a half, a Horizon student’s arrested. The student was taken into custody after an El Paso County Sheriff’s Deputy met with the boy and his parents at home. During the meeting, the deputy learned there were weapons in the home. According to the Sheriff’s office, the family didn’t want to get rid of the weapons or lock them up. The boy’s in custody until his home situation can be re-evaluated. Horizon staff learned of the possible threat on Friday, when a teacher saw the boy was upset. According to the Sheriff’s office, the boy thentold the teacher of the threat. The school’s assistant principal was identified as one potential target.

Parents at Horizon are now getting a response from the school about the deadly threatsNEWSCHANNEL 13told you about on Monday. Two sixth graders were arrested because of a threatening online journal. Students were given a letter explaining the incident for parents. A copy was also posted on Horizon’s website.

One excerpt reads,”We realize that parents need to know that their students are safe and yet releasing information which is inaccurate or incomplete is not something we will do.”

That’s getting mixed response from parents.

“I think they’re doing absolutely right and I trust them,” says Horizon parent Stacy Collas.

Sonja McGee’s grandson goes to Horizon. She thinks the district should tell family immediately.

“Right away, when they hear something,” says McGee. “If I would have heard that, I don’t even know if I would have let him go to school.”

“They have that right to gather all the information before they let the parents understand what’s going on,” says Collas.

It’s been a week a half sincethe online threat against students and teachers at Horizon. The district says because of two snow days and the weekend, the letter that just went home (and posted online) couldn’t have come any sooner.

“If we put out information immediately on every situation before we have the facts, parents would be upset with us for putting out incomplete and misinformation,” says District 49 Safety Coordinator Jay Hahn.

“No matter what you can put out, you put out something and you put out something right away,” says District 11 Spokeswoman Elaine Naleski.

She says District 11 learned its lesson in November. It was then, that an 8-year old girl at Rudy Elementary said she was nearly abducted. That was on a Friday. It turned out to be a hoax, but parents weren’t told anything until the next Monday.

“What we found at Rudy and what we do now, is we don’t wait,” says Naleski. “We don’t wait for the weekend, we don’t wait for anything.”

When a student at D-11’sNorth Middle School was found with a gun one week ago, a letter went home before school was out.

“You don’t have to put in all the details and you don’t want to put in all the details, you just want to do an alert,” says Naleski.

The letter Horizonsent home to parents only mentions lastweek’s threats, but doesn’t mention the third arrest.

NEWSCHANNEL 13 made several phone calls to the office of District 49 Superintendent Nancy Wright. None of those calls were returned.