State, Federal And Local Police Investigate Amity HS Email Threat

WOODBRIDGE, CT — An threatening email sent to Amity Regional High School staff and students Monday morning drew police from Woodbridge, Orange and New Haven to the campus, "a large number" of parents to take their kids home, and an investigation that now includes local, state and federal authorities, Woodbridge Police Department Chief Frank Cappiello said.

In a report early Monday morning by WTNH, a letter to families from Amity Regional School District 5 Superintendent Dr. Jennifer P. Byars explained that students and staff were safe and that police were involved. The station reported that the emails contained images of guns along with written threats.

By around 4 p.m., Cappiello provided an update.

Cappiello said that at around 9:30 a.m., school administrators told the school resource officer that "some students and staff had received e-mail messages indicating a possible threat on campus." Woodbridge police responded to the school right away, he said, and began an investigation. Cappiello said police "quickly determined that there was no credible threat imminent to students and faculty."

He said school administrators made a decision to “shelter in place," which limits movement throughout the school, and immediately notified parents about the incident. Cappiello said that as the "suspicious emails" were shared among "students, their parents, and the community via social media, that prompted the response of a large number of parents to the school to pick up their children.

Cappiello said that members of the Connecticut State Police, the New Haven and Orange police departments "assisted with a police presence at the school."

"Amity Regional High School is safe and secure," he said, adding that there will be a police presence at the school for the remainder of the day, as well as an additional police presence at the school tomorrow."

Cappiello said the Woodbridge Police Department Investigative Services Unit is "currently working with federal and state authorities to determine the origin of the threat. "