The Heritage Regional High School was closed for the entire day on Monday in the wake of “threatening remarks”. This is not the first time that such an operation must be held in this establishment, which had placed 1,600 students in confinement last year for security reasons.
At around 8 a.m., the Longueuil police announced the suspension of classes for the day at this school located in the borough of Saint-Hubert. “The vast majority of students were not at school,” SPAL said in a Facebook post, later specifying that the few young people who were already there were evacuated.
The police were on site in the morning to carry out a “preventive intervention”, also wrote the police force, without giving further details. The premises were finally “secured” in the middle of the morning. On social networks, the deputy for Vachon, Ian Lafrenière, said he was following “the situation closely”.
“All buses have been told to turn around and go home. If you have dropped your child off for early practice, we ask that you pick them up as soon as possible, ”the management wrote on its Facebook page.
As is always the case in this type of event, the Info-événement line of the Longueuil police force has been activated to answer questions from the population. Any parent of a student who has questions can thus contact 450-463-7191 to obtain information related to the event.
Not a first
More than a year ago, on October 2, 2020, some 1,600 students from Heritage School were emergency evacuated in the pouring rain. They had first all been placed in “preventive” confinement for nearly four hours, with teachers and staff. The reason: a young man made threats against the administration and students.
“We are talking about threats that are all in all quite serious,” said Sergeant Patrick Barrière, of the Longueuil police, on the sidelines of a press scrum after the evacuation. First formulated on social networks, these threats were quickly reported to 911.
At the end of the evening that day, officers arrested a 14-year-old young man from his home in Chambly. The suspect was not attending school.
On Monday, on social networks, parents also demonstrated their serious concerns about this multiplication of incidents. “It’s really starting to worry. I am thinking of changing my school children. So far it’s only been threats, but I don’t want to wait and see if it ever comes true, ”one wrote. “Other schools have recently suffered similar threats. School is not the problem. It’s bigger than that, ”another retorted.
In February 2019, a 25-year-old man from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu was also arrested for making online threats against the same high school. The situation had, again, forced the confinement of the school for several hours.