On the afternoon of April 8, RCMP officers were dispatched to Niverville Collegiate for the second time in just over a year due to social media threats made against the school. The Hanover School Division (HSD) was quick to respond by notifying the RCMP and immediately putting the school under a hold-and-secure protocol. 

The doors of the school were locked for just under an hour, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. Parents waited outside with bated breath until their kids were released.

The apparent threat came from a 15-year-old Niverville resident.

“The photo [on social media] appeared to be a youth carrying a firearm,” says Paul Manaigre, RCMP media spokesperson. “The understanding is that it was a real firearm but not his own.”

Accompanying the photo was a message issuing what could be conceived as a warning to anyone attending the high school in the coming days. Manaigre says the police were able to quickly identify the individual, who was already known to RCMP officials. Five officers were immediately dispatched, three to cover the interior and exterior of the school and two others to track the suspect down at his Niverville home.

“Within the hour… they located and arrested him and brought him back to the detachment,” Manaigre says. “He has been remanded into custody. [He’s] probably facing charges of uttering threats and weapons-related charges.”

To remand someone into custody, he says, means making an application to the court to have him held until he can appear before a judge. Typically, an appearance before a judge happens within 24 hours of an arrest. The judge then makes a decision as to whether the suspect will continue on in custody until his next court appearance or if he’ll be released on specified conditions until that date.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Manaigre was still unsure as to whether the suspect had been presented before a judge and, if so, what decision had been made.

“The [RCMP] were fantastic,” says Randy Dueck, superintendent of the Hanover School Division. “I can’t say enough. For a while [during the event], we had a live phone open to Michael Koester’s office… and we were able to include the RCMP directly in our conversation at the division office as well.”

Dueck explains that a hold-and-secure measure is something that is done when the threat to the school is external and there is no perceived danger within the school. The outside doors are locked and, depending on the situation, students and staff are allowed to move freely within the building.

Students in the portable huts, on the other hand, were moved to the security of the main building. On Monday, that meant they gathered in the gymnasium, the only place large enough to accommodate so many students at once.

A lockdown measure, he clarifies, is taken when the threat exists internally, in which case students and teachers are locked into their individual classrooms.

“What you need to know is that, in a crisis situation, we have a division crisis team that we bring together immediately,” Dueck says. “We had eight people in a room here contacting [parents] and the RCMP, etc. Our assistant superintendent of student services was in the room reaching out to her clinicians, and I think there was even one within the school at the time to provide support.”

Unlike the similar event of February 2018, school division staff worked diligently at providing virtually live feedback to parents throughout the course of the event. A series of emails and voicemails were sent to all parents with children at both NCI and the Niverville Elementary School. 

“The parents will get notification almost as soon as we’re into a situation and then we try to provide as regular updates as we can with information as to how the situation is unfolding, because we know that parents are really concerned,” Dueck says. “It’s a challenge, because we’re learning information as we go along as well. It’s not like we know everything when something starts. We’ve unfortunately had other opportunities in other schools to practice some of these things and we’re getting better every time.”

HSD’s decision to likewise inform parents with children in the Niverville Elementary school came as a result of past experience.

 “We’ve heard from parents, loud and clear, ‘If something’s happening in one school in the community, even though we don’t have kids in that school, we want to be aware,’” says Dueck. “So [we’re trying to be] very responsive to parents in that situation.”

Because the hold-and-secure measure was still in effect at the end of the school day, HSD was faced with a new challenge: what to do about bus pickups. With no existing threat at the elementary school, early years students were picked up as usual. Some bus drivers proceeded to deliver these children home while others waited for permission to proceed to NCI to load the balance of their passengers.

While HSD made attempts to contact all parents again to inform them about late bus arrivals, Dueck admits they could have done better. 

“I would like to think we did a great job of that,” says Dueck, “but we did receive some feedback from early years parents that maybe we didn’t get that particular announcement out in as timely a way as possible. That’s something that we’ve listened to and have made a note for the next time.”

As of Tuesday, with the threat under the RCMP’s control, students returned to school as usual. Counsellors were on site to provide a listening ear for students who might be struggling with the previous day’s trauma. They will remain at the school until they are no longer needed.

“[I was] surprised to learn about the hold-and-secure procedure,” says one parent of a Grade Five student at NCI. “I had planned to pick up my child on Monday afternoon instead of the usual bus routine, therefore I was definitely a little worried as I waited outside the school for them when I got the call from HSD notifying me.”

She’s pleased, though, that the threat was taken seriously and that the suspect was detained quickly. 

“They were very prompt in notifying parents, as I got the phone call at 3:30 p.m.,” she adds. While her child didn’t appear rattled from the day’s events, she’s glad for the counselling support provided by HSD staff.