Bomb threat at Buchanan High quickly determined to be a hoax, Clovis Police say

A bomb threat targeting Buchanan High on Friday afternoon was determined to be a hoax, the Clovis Police said.

The department’s communications center received the threat at 2:58 p.m.

School officials were alerted, and the campus was evacuated as a precaution. Garfield Elementary and Alta Sierra Intermediate, which share the Buchanan Educational Center campus, also were put on alert.

“It was a generic bomb threat for Buchanan High School, and we immediately responded and contacted school staff,” said Ty Wood, a police service officer with the police department.

“As we were arriving, school staff was making announcements to evacuate the campus just for precautionary measures and once we had a pretty good perimeter set up that we were comfortable with and people were off campus, our officers did go on campus with our drone, searching for anything we could find. After about 30 or 40 minutes on campus, we felt comfortable enough to give the all clear. We were working with Clovis Unified School District police department and school staff, and let them know everything was good to go.”

About 15 Clovis police officers, mostly on patrol, have drones assigned to them in their patrol vehicles.

Classes at the high school had ended for the day, but several after-school activities were relocated to areas south of the campus while police investigated the bomb threat. The all clear was given about 3:50 p.m.

The FBI was alerted and had at least one representative on the scene.

“The FBI will be following up,” Wood said. “That’s their protocol and they would pursue criminal charges, if deemed necessary.”

The bomb threat was the second in as many days targeting a Fresno County school.

There were online threats posted Thursday targeting Washington Academic Middle School in Sanger.

The threats were being investigated by Sanger police and there was an increased police presence at the school on Friday.

This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 5:43 PM.