Suspects ID'ed in racist threat at Traverse City Central High

Grace George, The Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Mich.
·3 min read

Dec. 17—TRAVERSE CITY — The Traverse City Police Department identified individuals in the investigation into a racist threat that closed Traverse City Central High School for a day.

A Traverse City Area Public Schools statement Thursday night told families the threat "was contained;" that the matter would be referred to law enforcement for possible legal charges; and that the school would be open on Friday.

The threat, scrawled on a bathroom stall, was a "threat of serious bodily injury" to the African American community, and it included "an epithet that we don't recognize as socially accepted any longer in our culture," said Traverse City Police Chief Jeffrey O'Brien.

School officials called TCPD after it was found around 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday, O'Brien said, and two detectives worked the investigation through the night and Thursday.

"The police department, when we get these threats from the high school, we put all our assets in that are needed and available," O'Brien said. "And, we train within our road patrol. We have active shooter drills. We have open lines of communication with the school system."

Superintendent John VanWagoner said he canceled classes at the high school "out of an abundance of caution" and notified families Wednesday night.

"We want to make sure that we have a safe environment for all students on any school day," VanWagoner said. "And so at any point of any day of the school year where I felt ... even a remote chance of it not being safe, I would always err on the side of caution."

Since the Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School that left four dead and seven wounded, school districts all over Michigan — including TCAPS — have faced "copycat" threats of violence in their schools. On Dec. 8, Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Noelle Moeggenberg was investigating at least five vague threats of violence made in the TCAPS community following the Oxford shooting.

TCAPS has also dealt with other racist incidents in the past year.

In April 2021, students at Central High School and Traverse City West Senior High School became the focus of both school and law enforcement investigations after officials learned of a discussion titled "Slave Trade" on the social media platform Snapchat. The students were accused of participating in a group exchange where photos of Black students were posted by some and others placed bids for them.

Pictures of messages viewed by the Record-Eagle included crude and sexual comments, racial and anti-LGBTQ slurs, demeaning comments about students with autism and racist stereotypes.

In his email to the TCAPS community on Wednesday, VanWagoner encouraged parents to talk about threats of violence and the consequences of making such threats with their children.

"Any comment made, whether verbally or in writing, will be followed up by both school administration and local law enforcement," VanWagoner wrote. "Please discuss the importance of this topic with your child as all threats of school violence are taken extremely seriously and have severe consequences."

VanWagoner said he and other TCAPS officials will do everything they can to make TCAPS schools as safe as possible for students.

"(We) do not condone in any way, shape or form any kind of racial threat, especially," VanWagoner said. "And, you know, we will not tolerate that and we'll use the full force of our board policies to make sure that people understand that it is not right. It's not okay, and it's not something that we as a community, as TCAPS, in our school stand for."