Bomb threats against Catholic schools in Trinidad

[redmanjp]

http://www.cnc3.co.tt/press-release/minister-bomb-threats-pranksters-will-not-disrupt-csec-cape-exams

Minister on bomb threats Pranksters will not disrupt CSEC, CAPE exams
Date:
Friday, May 24, 2019 - 13:00

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion says it will not al­low pranksters to dis­rupt the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the CSEC and CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions.

This, even as they in­tro­duced stricter se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures fol­low­ing wide­spread calls to­day that a num­ber of bombs had been plant­ed at sev­er­al sec­ondary schools across the coun­try.

Speak­ing from his of­fice at the Ed­u­ca­tion Tow­er, Port-of-Spain ear­li­er - Gar­cia as­sured stu­dents and par­ents that there was noth­ing to pan­ic about.

He said, “Very ear­ly this morn­ing, I re­ceived a call from one of the prin­ci­pals of a school stat­ing that she re­ceived an email threat yes­ter­day evening, say­ing that a bomb would be placed in the school bag of one of the stu­dents and if a cer­tain sum of mon­ey was not paid by 10 am to­day, then the bomb would be det­o­nat­ed.”

“As a re­sult, there would chaos in schools.”

While he did not iden­ti­fy the prin­ci­pal he spoke with, Gar­cia said the TTPS was con­tact­ed.

Re­veal­ing the Cy­ber Crime Unit, as well as the Ca­nine Unit, had been alert­ed, Gar­cia said of­fi­cers with snif­fer dogs be­gan vis­it­ing schools from as ear­ly as 6 am to­day to con­duct de­tailed search­es of premis­es, stu­dents and ar­riv­ing school of­fi­cials.

In a re­lease this morn­ing, the min­istry iden­ti­fied two of the schools which in­clud­ed St. Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain and St. Joseph’s Con­vent, St. Joseph.

There was an un­con­firmed re­port that a sim­i­lar threat had been been re­ceived by of­fi­cials at St. George’s Col­lege, Barataria - spark­ing ru­mors that the threats were be­ing ex­tend­ed on­ly to Catholic-run schools.

How­ev­er, this was de­bunked by Gar­cia who said, “While we felt this was an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent, we learnt fur­ther that very many oth­er schools have been af­fect­ed and the prin­ci­pals, in ac­cor­dance with the pro­ce­dures that has been de­vel­oped, have con­tact­ed the po­lice and they are do­ing search­es to en­sure there is not de­vice that can cause any dis­rup­tion of ex­ams.”

Gar­cia went on, “It is my feel­ing that this had been de­lib­er­ate­ly done to af­fect the smooth run­ning of the ex­ams.”

Con­demn­ing the ac­tion, he added, “It is on­ly some­body with a de­ranged mind would think of such an ac­tion and that has to be con­demned.”

Warn­ing that the per­pe­tra­tors of this crime would feel the full brunt of the law when­ev­er they are found, Gar­cia ap­pealed to par­ents and stu­dents to re­main calm.

He said, “Ex­am­i­na­tions are be­ing writ­ten as nor­mal so they have not suc­ceed­ed with their de­vi­ous plan.”

Mean­while, a fa­ther of a stu­dent at­tend­ing St. George’s Col­lege con­firmed he was asked to pick up his daugh­ter around 10 am - while the moth­er of a child at­tend­ing a Catholic pri­ma­ry school in Port-of-Spain con­firmed a sim­i­lar move by school au­thor­i­ties.

The two said they were told the ac­tion was tak­en in the in­ter­est of the chil­drens’ safe­ty.

Prin­ci­pal at St. Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain - An­na Pounder is­sued a re­lease which ad­vised par­ents and guardians that, “Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived, the school au­thor­i­ties con­tact­ed the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties and passed it on to them. The Po­lice vis­it­ed the school yes­ter­day and this morn­ing of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Branch and Ca­nine Unit did a thor­ough sweep of every area. The school has been de­clared safe and we are con­tin­u­ing with class and ex­ams.”

The Email Threat Sent To Prin­ci­pals

“This mes­sage is to EVERY­ONE. On Fri­day 24th May, 2019 we are send­ing a stu­dent with a bomb. The bomb will go off at 10 am if you do not send $100,000 TTD to pay­ments@faith­fulmc.com. If you do not send the mon­ey! We will blow up the de­vice. If you try to call the po­lice WE WILL BLOWUP THE DE­VICE ON SPOT. ANY at­tempt at DE­FUS­ING it your­self will cause it to ex­plode!”

TTPS Says Schools Safe

In a re­lease around mid­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith ad­vised mem­bers of the pub­lic that po­lice of­fi­cers had thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed bomb threats made against sev­er­al schools and these in­sti­tu­tions have now been de­clared safe for oc­cu­pa­tion by teach­ers and stu­dents.

The com­mis­sion­er led a team of of­fi­cers to St. Mary’s Col­lege; St. Joseph’s Con­vent, Port of Spain; Fa­ti­ma Col­lege; Holy Name Con­vent; and St. Joseph’s Con­vent, St. Joseph.

This, af­ter sev­er­al bomb threats were made against these schools to­day.

Grif­fith urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to use so­cial me­dia more re­spon­si­bly, as he said, “At the time when per­sons were shar­ing the post, po­lice of­fi­cers were ac­tive­ly en­gaged in in­ves­ti­gat­ing these threats.”

“This un­due pan­ic re­sult­ed from one in­di­vid­ual’s de­ci­sion to share the post on so­cial me­dia.”

The CoP ad­mit­ted some peo­ple may use in­ci­dents such as these as a way of self-pro­mo­tion or to achieve a sense of self-im­por­tance by shar­ing in­for­ma­tion on so­cial me­dia.

“How­ev­er, this has on­ly led to in­creased anx­i­ety and pan­ic among stu­dents, par­ents and staff at these schools, as many stu­dents are sit­ting their ex­am­i­na­tions to­day.”

Grif­fith said while per­sons should not triv­i­alise any bomb threat, he strong­ly ad­vised, “Per­sons that up­on re­ceiv­ing such a threat, that they should im­me­di­ate­ly make a re­port to the po­lice so that rel­e­vant pro­to­cols for in­ves­ti­gat­ing the au­then­tic­i­ty of such threats can be ac­ti­vat­ed.”

Reporter: Anna Lisa-Paul

[Cantmis]

https://youtu.be/0lT0zA6HBDM

[bluefete]

So they could find Imbert son phone, in no time, but they cannot even trace these calls as yet?

[zoom rader]

So they could find Imbert son phone, in no time, but they cannot even trace these calls as yet?

Shows you what type of country we live in

[K74T]

So they could find Imbert son phone, in no time, but they cannot even trace these calls as yet?

It was an email not a call

[maj. tom]

Well unless it was an elite hacker, an email would make tracing it so much easier.

Unless it was typed out on Microsoft Word and delivered to the school with claims that it came from a email address that doesn't exist.

[rspann]

Well unless it was an elite hacker, an email would make tracing it so much easier.

Unless it was typed out on Microsoft Word and delivered to the school with claims that it came from a email address that doesn't exist.

Then half the country would believe it was true, and the police wouldn't act on it.

[airuma]

Well unless it was an elite hacker, an email would make tracing it so much easier.

Unless it was typed out on Microsoft Word and delivered to the school with claims that it came from a email address that doesn't exist.

Then half the country would believe it was true, and the police wouldn't act on it.

MOE would have to contact google to validate?
CXC exams real making news this rounds though. Last opportunity to make POS schools look better than the rest?

[rspann]

We use to make bomb threats for day off to go lime. Look what it reach to now. These blasted chirren duncy.

[zoom rader]

We use to make bomb threats for day off to go lime. Look what it reach to now. These blasted chirren duncy.

Dem is upper PNM kids that go POS convent