By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Police directed students this morning to go home
after a bomb threat at Radford High School.
Bomb threat
shuts Radford
High School
Classes are canceled and
By Jaymes K. Song
students sent home after
fake explosive is found
Star-BulletinClasses were canceled at Radford High School today when a custodian found a suspicious device in the school's courtyard.
The police bomb squad was called and the device, a 10-inch by 3-inch box containing what appeared to be taped batteries and wires, was dismantled.
Officers said the box wasn't capable of exploding, and they were checking for fingerprints.
"I have no sympathy for the kids who did this and no sympathy about what's going to happen to them," said Robin Taibbi, whose son is one of the 1,400 students at the school.
Today's closure followed a week of threats from students and rumors of trouble at the school.
Last week, police took a Radford student into custody for threatening a repeat of the Littleton, Colo., school massacre that left 15 dead.
Radford Principal Robert Stevens said today that three students linked to threats were suspended last week, and two were later expelled.
Yesterday, a 16-year-old girl at the school was apprehended after an electronic message warning of a bomb was traced to her, police said. The bomb mentioned in the message was supposed to blow up today, they said.
As Radford teachers met this morning to review security plans, hundreds of students milled around outside, some cheering because classes were canceled. A carload of youngsters drove around and yelled "Boom!" at reporters and pedestrians near the school.
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Patrolman Gary K. Lahens of the Pearl City police
station points to a small wooden box, found at Radford
High School today, that turned out to be a false bomb.
The closure was "exactly what they want. Who had a Spanish test they didn't want to take today?" Taibbi asked.His son, 10th-grader Chris Taibbi, said a student at the school was heard saying, "If you thought Littleton was bad, wait till my turn."
The younger Taibbi said the threats were probably made by students who wanted attention.
His father said authorities should come down hard on the youngsters, because "this is big-league stuff. I'm amazed at the number of copycats, and I'm amazed that they would think it's funny."
The Radford incident was one of several reported in Hawaii since the Colorado shooting.
A 16-year-old boy from Waipahu High School was arrested yesterday after another student overheard him saying,"Don't come to school on May 20th. We're going to bomb the school," according to a detective's report.
School officials reportedly found instructions in the boy's possession on how to construct pipe bombs, police said. The instructions came from an Internet site connected to the "Trench Coat Mafia," the same group the two Colorado student killers were affiliated with.
A 10-year-old boy was arrested at Kalihi Kai Elementary after a cafeteria employee saw him carrying an air pistol in his waistband.
Police said that the boy's friend asked him, "What are you going to do with that? Are you going to kill us?"
The boy replied, "Yeah, just like Colorado."
The copycat phenomenon has been reported across the United States and in Canada, where a 14-year-old boy opened fire at a high school yesterday, shooting two boys and killing one.
"There's going to be some behaviors that are just simply reflective of immaturity.
"Those are the immature, poorly thought-out, attention-getting acts," said Graham Taylor, a clinical psychologist with Queen's Medical Center.
He said a crisis like the one in Littleton can trigger and uncork violence in "copycat children, the ones who begin to exhibit similar serious behaviors, their own pain and rage."
The shootings "serve as a trigger, igniting these feelings that may have been smoldering for some time."
Parents or community members should report concerns to individual principals, because the state's Department of Education lacks any organized or formal system to report problems, according to Greg Knudsen, department spokesman.
But parents at Radford High School this morning found out they couldn't call the school because it was closed.
"Today there is no central place to call," said Jan Catton, who has two children at Radford. "I don't believe that Radford is unsafe any more than any other school in this state," she said. Stevens, the Radford principal, said the school will be open tomorrow, with increased security. Police, security guards and military personnel have been brought in to watch the school 24 hours a day, he said.
Star-Bulletin reporters Richard Borreca and
June Watanabe contributed to this report.
Radford parent Jan Catton has called for a march on the state Capitol next month to pray for Hawaii schools. The event will be held in conjunction with National Prayer Day, May 6, at the Capitol from 6 to 6:30 p.m. March and prayer
