Police in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, are investigating threatening lists that were found at a middle school, trying to track down the person or people responsible for causing unease among students.
“These were kill lists,” said Anne Arundel County police spokesman Marc Limansky. “They were written on bathroom walls and in books.”
There were five lists discovered last week at MacArthur Middle School, police said. One was in a textbook, another was in a comic book, and the rest were written on bathroom walls.
“Our investigators are working on it in conjunction with the school and the school resource officers,” Limansky said. “If you’re threatening five people, that could be considered a threat of mass violence.”
The lists included students in eighth grade. Investigators also talked with the students who were named in the lists and their family members.
“They’re looking at any potential avenues for further investigation to determine who may have done these,” Limansky said. “We don’t know whether they were done by the same person or there were copycats.”
MacArthur is a school of about 1,150 students in grades 6-8 in Fort Meade, Maryland.
“This is always treated seriously,” Limansky said. “Certainly it makes students in the school maybe feel afraid or uncomfortable, and we want to make sure we determine who committed this offense.”
Limansky said that police would work with the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office to determine appropriate criminal charges if a suspect were to be identified.
