Details Sparse About Student's Alleged Death Threat

Few new details emerged Wednesday about a student's alleged threat to kill one of his teachers, whom he said embarrassed or disrespected him in front of other students.

Pinole Police Cmdr. John Hardester told Pinole Patch that the boy, 14, made the threat while talking to a health counselor at about 9:25 a.m. The student "felt as though he was disrespected or embarrassed," and told the counselor he was going to kill the teacher, Hardester said.

A school official notified an on-campus school resource officer at 10:10 a.m., Hardester said. The officer contacted off-campus Pinole police, who quickly found the student on Tennent Avenue. A search led to an "itemized list" and written details about how the boy planned to carry out the threat, Hardester said. Police arested the student at 10:31 a.m., according to the police blotter on the city's website.

A search at the student's home turned up no weapons, Hardester said, but he was arrested for threatening a school official, which is a felony. He remained in custody at Juvenile Hall Wednesday afternoon, Hardester said.

The campus-based officers apply a "zero tolerance" reaction to such threats, taking them all seriously, Hardester said.

"This one was particularly concerning to us because it was a verbal statement backed up with written documentation," he said.

Hardester referred questions about school protocol in reporting incidents to police to the school. Pinole Patch's call to Principal Sue Kahn resulted in a referral to the school district. District spokesman Marin Trujillo said that standard policy is to take a student aside to assess the situation when a student might he a harm "to himself or to others." District officials are conducting an investigation of the incident, including how and why the Pinole student was able to leave campus.

"I'm not 100 percent sure why that didn't happen with that student," Trujillo said. "Clearly someone realized that shouldn't have happened and it was immediately reported to police."

He noted that police found the boy soon after he left campus. Trujillo also said that district officials are limited in the amount of detail they can publicly disclose in this and other similar situations because of confidentiality restrictions.