A series of threats prompted lockdowns at several schools and at a college campus in Maine on Thursday.
Maine School Administrative District 75 lifted a shelter in place order just before 1 p.m. after a man had been charged with terrorizing.
“The man in question is now in custody,” interim Superintendent Heidi O’Leary said in an email to the school community.
The students and staff members of every school in the district had been ordered to shelter in place in the morning after a Caribou man allegedly threatened to bring a gun to an unnamed elementary school in the district.
Adam Green, 36, was arrested in Fort Fairfield and charged with two counts of terrorizing and one count of harassment, Topsham police said.
Green allegedly had been making jokes about the mass shooting in Lewiston, Chief Marc Hagan said in a statement. When a Topsham resident asked why he would make such jokes, Green is accused of responding with “threats to show up at the local elementary school with his AR-15.”
Hagan said Green also threatened the resident, placing “them in fear for their own personal safety.” The chief said Green also has posted threats to shoot President Biden, who is scheduled to visit Maine on Friday.
In an email to the school earlier Thursday, O’Leary said Topsham police informed her that a man from Caribou had some sort of conflict with a former student. The man threatened to find where the former student lives and bring a weapon to a school.
She said no school or students were identified.
“I want to stress that there is no indication of any immediate danger to students and staff, but we are taking precautionary safety measures,” she said.
In an email to families, Bowdoinham Community School Principal Christopher Lajoie said “we’re doing just fine at the school.”
He said classes were continuing and a Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Deputy was parked outside.
The district did dismiss students who attend Region 10 Technical High School, according to an email sent to parents.
MSAD 75 includes schools in Topsham, Harpswell, Bowdoinham and Bowdoin, where 40-year-old Robert Card lived before killing 18 people and wounded 13 others in a mass shooting in Lewiston last week.
Cony High School and the Capital Area Technical Center in Augusta also were in lockdown around 11:12 a.m. Thursday to investigate a report that a student brought a weapon to school, officials said.
A joint statement from the Augusta school and police departments said the high school’s administration worked with the school resource officer to investigate the claim and said the student involved was “quickly contained.”
“The decision was made to go into a ‘lock-in’ protocol because the concern could not be quickly invalidated,” the statement said.
The district did not say if that student had been charged or if a weapon was found, but Deputy Police Chief Kevin Lully said there is “no threat to students, staff or the community.”
Lully said the incident is being investigated.
The school resumed dismissal just before 2 p.m., but all after-school activities, including a pair of playoff soccer games, were canceled as a result. Classes will resume Friday, with a police presence.
THREAT CLOSES CHARTER SCHOOL
In Skowhegan, a person was taken into custody after a threat prompted the Community Regional Charter School to close Thursday, the school’s executive director said.
Travis Works released a letter Thursday morning saying a parent of a student made the threat to a staffer. He didn’t expand on the nature of the threat or indicate when it was made.
Classes at the Dimensions Academy in Cornville and Creative Children’s Academy and Overman Academy in Skowhegan were canceled for the day. Works said they will resume classes Friday.
“This situation will be closely monitored and law enforcement will be in contact with me with any updates or concerns,” Works said in the letter.
In an email to the Morning Sentinel later, he said that he couldn’t provide additional details beyond what is in his letter.
Skowhegan police, Maine State Police and the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office are involved in the investigation. Calls to Skowhegan police and the sheriff’s office for additional details were not returned Thursday afternoon.
The closure came just days after schools in Albion, Benton, Clinton and Fairfield, all part of School Administrative District 49, canceled classes due to alarming social media posts made by a former student. The man authorities accuse of making the threats was arrested Monday in Oklahoma, where he now lives, and was being held on $1 million bail.
Northern Maine Community College in Presque Isle also was put on lockdown Thursday morning. A Facebook post from the college said the situation had been resolved and classes resumed at 10:30 a.m.
Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Emily Duggan contributed to this report.
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