On Monday, November 3, Milford Police Department posted on social media that they were on the scene of a bomb threat at Milford High School and Milford Central Academy. Both schools were evacuated, and all students reported safe. The scene was cleared around 1 PM that day. Later, the district issued a statement from Superintendent Travis Moorman.
“We are providing information regarding a bomb threat received at Milford Central Academy in the Milford School District today. The threat was issued by email to our general information address and was received early this morning,” the statement read. “District officials contacted Milford Police Department who immediately responded to the campus to begin their investigation.”
The statement continued.
“Following our safety response plan, students were safely evacuated. Parents and guardians were notified immediately of this evacuation and provided instructions on where to report to pick up their students,” the statement read. “The schools were cleared of any threat by Milford PD at 1:00PM and remaining students from MCA and MHS were relocated back to their respective schools at that time.”
On Tuesday, November 4, Milford Police Department announced that a 13-year-old from Seaford had been arrested for the false threat. In addition, they revealed details on how they cleared the scene.
“After the schools had been evacuated, explosive trained K9 units from around the state conducted bomb sweeps of both facilities. While the bomb sweeps were occurring, our detectives launched an investigation into the bomb threat email,” the statement read. “Through investigative efforts, detectives were able to identify the email sender as a 13-year-old male from Seaford, DE, who was not a Milford School District student. Detectives obtained an arrest warrant for the juvenile.”
According to police, the juvenile was brought to Milford Police Department by a parent and charged with one count of terroristic threatening, a felony. The juvenile had a presentment through Kent County Family court and released to a parent on a $1,000 unsecured bond.
“Thank you to staff, teachers, our great security personnel, Milford PD, and of course, our students for handling this morning’s incident with professionalism and patience,” Milford School Board Vice-President Matt Bucher posted on social media. “But, on account of this dumb prank by “allegedly” an out-of-district juvenile, there were thousands of dollars of taxpayer money wasted, hundreds of hours of salaries wasted and lost, and some 2,000 students lost a day of valuable instructional time. Outrageous!”
Milford Chief of Police Cecilia Ashe agreed with Bucher.
“We will not tolerate these types of pranks and we will use every local, state, and federal resource available to find you,” Ashe said. “Thank you to the detectives who worked tirelessly through the night to identify this subject.”
Ashe also thanked the community partners who helped keep children safe during the incident.
“Thank you to our community partners UNITED Church and Milford Movies 9 for stepping up when we reached out for help, as this is community policing in practice”.
This case remains an active investigation. Milford Police Department would also like to thank the Delaware State Police, Delaware Capitol Police and Newark Police for providing their K9 units to assist with this incident.
