2 Fitzgerald students arrested after alleged threats

Fitzgerald Public Schools in Warren has removed a high school student and a middle school student over alleged threats made online and at a school breakfast, respectively.

The Fitzgerald High School student admitted to making an online threat Monday morning, interim superintendent Laurie Fournier said in a written statement. That student was arrested by Warren police.

That student is a 16-year-old girl, said Warren Police Commissioner Bill Dwyer. Police believe that on the social media platform of Snapchat, the girl wrote: "if you don't want to (expletive) die, stay home tomorrow; that's not a threat, that's a promise."

Dwyer said the girl confessed to making the threat, which last week resulted in two days of school closures in the district. 

The second incident occurred at Chatterton Middle School Monday morning when a student "made threatening statements regarding other students during breakfast," Fournier said in the statement. 

After being questioned by the principal, the student was pulled out of school and arrested by Warren police.

"Both of these threats have been deemed by the Warren Police Department to not be credible," Fournier's statement said, "however they will carry very serious consequences for both of the individuals involved."

Dwyer said the middle school student is a 13-year-old girl. He didn't yet have the police report for her case.

Monday is the first time in three school days that Fitzgerald schools have held classes; they were canceled Thursday and Friday due to student threats. The district announced Sunday afternoon through its Facebook page and its website that classes were to resume Monday.

"We are reopening schools because the Warren Police Department has cleared our schools to open as they do not deem that the particular threat made against Fitzgerald Public Schools is credible," Fournier wrote in the Sunday update.

Classes continued Monday with increased security patrols and school resource officers moving between buildings.