Police unable to track Tuesday bomb threat to schools

Staff report

WARREN

Police say they were not able to track the bomb threat to city schools made Tuesday morning because it came from a phone that is not connected to a phone company.

Cellphones are able to make 911 calls even if they do not have minutes or are not associated with a phone company, said Capt. Robert Massucci of the Warren Police Department.

That is apparently the type of phone a man used at 10:14 a.m. Tuesday to call police to indicate that a bomb would go off at a city school building at 10:30 a.m., Massucci said.

Massucci said the threat sent police and fire officials to the schools with police checking the buildings and finding nothing unusual.

Massucci said the incident uncovered a few procedural issues that he would like to talk to the school district about to make things go smoother in the future.

The children were evacuated successfully, but school officials struggled to access paperwork that listed parents or other caregivers authorized to pick up children, Massucci said.

Electronic lists need to be available in the future instead of printed lists, he said.

School resumed Wednesday.