2nd Niles lockdown stirs fears

The threat, this time, was written on a boys restroom wall.

By TIM YOVICH

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

NILES — Some parents say they won’t be sending their children to Niles McKinley High School for a while, because it was locked down for two days due to threats of violence.

“I’m keeping him home” in the short term, Mary Tursack said of her sophomore son, Tim Tursack, as she stood outside the high school Tuesday morning.

Police Chief Bruce Simeone said students were locked down in their rooms after someone had written “All Will Die” on a boys restroom wall.

From about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., students were kept in their rooms while police searched students and their personal items for weapons. None was found, the chief said.

The students did receive a late lunch and were able to use the rest-rooms as the lockdown went into the afternoon.

On Monday, the school was also locked down to search for weapons. Before the school bell rang, a freshman student was arrested at his home after a threatening note found on a Mason Street sidewalk was linked to him through handwriting.

About 100 parents, some of them angry with school officials and police because they weren’t being informed of what was going on inside the school, stood Tuesday at the front of the building.

About 1:30 p.m., Simeone and Superintendent Rocco Adduci emerged from the school to brief parents that their children were safe, and explain why the building was locked down.

“I know he’s safe at home,” Tursack said of her son.

Tursack said she believes Tuesday’s threat was done by a copycat of the threat leading to Monday’s lockdown.

About noon, students could be seen throwing notes out the window.

“HELP US — NEED FOOD,” one student wrote.

Troy Adkins has children in the ninth and 10th grades at the school.

“No way they’re going to school Wednesday,” Adkins said, adding that his children have become frightened.

Like others, Adkins was critical of not being informed of what was happening in the building.

“I feel I’m a patient man. I feel upset that nobody is giving us any information,” he said before the afternoon briefing. He pointed out that the only information parents were receiving was from their children on cell phones.

Kimberly Tenney stood outside the building waiting for her three nieces.

“They all feel like they’ve been violated” because of the searches through their personal items, Tenney said.

She noted that one niece — her sister’s daughter — wasn’t going to school today.

“This is getting very old,” said parent Stacey Bulford, whose son, Jeremy Menichelli, was inside.

“When it happens a second day in a row, you begin to get worried,” she said. “I can’t understand all the anger in there [the school]. It makes you a little nervous.”

yovich@vindy.com