Strong police presence expected Friday at Sarasota High School

Students and staff will see a strong police presence on the Sarasota High School campus Friday, after school authorities and police were alerted to what was initially believed to be a threat made on the social media application Snapchat.

At about 9:30 p.m. Thursday, the Sarasota Police Department announced in a news release that it had been alerted about posts a girl had made on Snapchat regarding a potential threat to the school. Sarasota police detectives were able to track down the girl and spoke with her and her parents to clarify the intention of the messages.

Police do not have any reason to believe there is an actual threat to the school, according to spokeswoman Genevieve Judge, but will have additional uniformed police officers out of an abundance of caution.

Social media is fast moving, Judge said. The police department also didn’t want students to worry when they saw the increased police presence, without knowing why.

“We wanted parents, staff and students to know that we take any type of threat serious,” Judge said. “We also want to commend that student who came forward.”

The department felt it was important to get the message out to everyone, even given how late it was.

Anyone who sees or reads anything that is suspicious is asked to immediately notify police as was done Thursday.

The Sarasota County School District also sent out a robo-call to parents and staff.

“Out of an extreme abundance of caution, we wanted to let you know that earlier this evening a student reported seeing a message on the social media platform Snapchat that included a threat toward Sarasota High,” the recorded message said.

The message continued, “The Sarasota Police Department is working with Sarasota High and district administrators to investigate the threat and determine whether it is credible. Reports such as these are not uncommon and are always treated seriously. Additional law enforcement officers will be on campus tomorrow as an additional safety precaution. We will keep you posted as we learn more. In the meantime, we commend the student who came forward to the report the message.”

This story was originally published October 26, 2017 at 10:56 PM with the headline "Strong police presence expected Friday at Sarasota High School."