Police are investigating message?s source
Gilroy – Police are investigating who sent a profanity-laced e-mail, riddled with ethnic slurs and death threats, to a Gilroy High School teacher.
Teachers are used to weathering spitballs, sarcasm, even the occasional f-word. But the violent e-mail isn?t mischief ? is a crime, say police, and it could be charged as ?terrorist threats.?
An algebra teacher got the message about two weeks ago, said teacher Bob Santos, mathematics department chair. Troubled, she shared the e-mail with Santos: a profanity-ridden, racist diatribe. The ?relatively new teacher? is a minority woman.
?However you want to look at it,? Santos said, ?it was bad.?
Michelle Nelson, president of the Gilroy Teachers? Association, declined to comment.
Principal James Maxwell said he was unable to comment at present, but Sgt. Kurt Svardal confirmed that a school resources officer was investigating the e-mail. The sender could be charged with ?terrorist threats,? Svardal said. If they?re a student, they may well be expelled, said assistant principal Greg Camacho-Light.
?Ultimately, it?s the decision of the school board,? he said. ?But if there?s a threat directed at a teacher, I?d move for expulsion.?
Three Gilroy High School students faced the same penalties in 2004, when a girl phoned 9-1-1 from a stolen cell phone, threatening to shoot her cooking teacher. A three-hour campus lockdown ensued, as armed police canvassed the school and nervous parents phoned their kids? cell phones, distraught with visions of Columbine.
The call was a prank, but the consequences were serious: expulsion and a trip to juvenile hall. Police say the episode cost them more than $17,000.
E-mail threats are a new phenomena at the high school, according to Camacho-Light, who knew of no other threatening e-mails directed at teachers. But whether by phone or by Web, such threats can be tough to trace.
?You whip up an e-mail from Yahoo or Hotmail and make up a bunch of information for it, and boom, you have a new identity,? Camacho-Light said.
Amid news of recent school shootings in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Wisconsin ? eight lives taken in a single week ? the message is no joke. And a shadowy threat from an unknown source is especially unnerving to a ?relatively new teacher? like this one, said Santos. He fears the district could lose a good teacher to the racist e-mail, and an unknown student to a stupid mistake.
?It?s disappointing,? he said, ?but kids do foolish things, trying to impress their friends that they?re cool. I remember doing some stupid things when I was a teenager too ? but not to this degree.?
Emily Alpert covers public safety issues for The Dispatch. She can be reached at 847-7158, or at ea*****@************ch.com.
