Facebook Posts Lead to Bomb Scare at Manchester High

Manchester High School was placed on lockdown Friday morning and a student was removed from the grounds by police after a conversation on Facebook led authorities to believe that a student might be bringing a bomb to the high school, according to police and school administrators. 

"There was a conversation on Facebook that someone might have built a bomb and was bringing it to the school," said Interim Manchester High School Principal Gregory Ziogas. 

Ziogas said that Manchester Police tried to contact the student at his home Friday morning and prevent him from coming to school, but were not able to locate him until he reached the parking lot, where he was intercepted by police and his car and belongings were searched. 

Interim Superintendent Richard Kisiel said the student, a male who attends the Bentley Alternative Education program inside the high school, was being driven to school by his mother when their vehicle was stopped on Brookfield Street in front of the school. 

"A student reported seeing on a kid's Facebook page that he had manufactured some type of explosive device," Manchester Police Cpt. Chris Davis told Patch. "We believe he probably took a picture off the internet of some sort of bomb-looking type thing." 

Manchester High School was placed on lockdown at about 8:30 a.m., Ziogas said, as a precautionary measure while the Connecticut State Police's bomb squad was called in to search the student's belongings. No bomb was found. 

Kisiel said he sent out two messages to parents using the school system's emergency alert system, one immediately after the school was placed on lockdown to inform them of the situation, and one at about 10:30 a.m. once the lockdown was lifted and the high school was deemed safe. 

Police and school administrators said the student was removed from school grounds by police, although no charges have been filed against him yet.

Kisiel said the student would not be allowed to return to school until administrators figure out the extent of his threat, and whether he has any medical or physiological conditions that might need to be addressed. 

Manchester High was last placed on lockdown Jan. 19 after reports of a man with a gun in the area. The gun turned out to be an air gun and the suspect lived at the residence where he was spotted.