Police charge MEMS pupil with making bomb threat
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

MANALAPAN - A bomb threat that was made at the Manalapan-English-town Middle School (MEMS) has resulted in the arrest of a 14-year-old boy who attends the school.

Police are not releasing the name of the juvenile.

Manalapan police and emergency services personnel responded to MEMS, on Millhurst Road, at 11:30 a.m. March 1 after school administrators notified them that a bomb threat had been found at the school.

A press release from the police states that a bomb "scare" was "generated as a result of a note left in one of the common areas of the school." Police said they could not elaborate on the circumstances of how or where the note was found.

Manalapan police Lt. Tom Barstow said students were evacuated from MEMS with their coats. They were told to leave their book bags in the building. He said the reason for directing the students to leave any bags or backpacks behind had no direct connection to the content of the threat itself, but was more of a safety measure.

According to Barstow, leaving all bags in MEMS assured a more orderly evacuation of the building. He said if an explosive device had been stashed in a bag, leaving all of the bags behind meant the device would not be carried out of the school by a student, and police would be able to search for and seize any potential explosive material.

Officers and bomb-sniffing dogs searched the school after the building had been evacuated.

The MEMS students were put on buses and transported to the Wemrock Brook School a short distance away on Millhurst Road.

According to a 12-year-old seventh-grade MEMS student who spoke to the News Transcript with parental permission, once the MEMS pupils arrived at Wemrock Brook they were not permitted to place cell phone calls, having been prohibited from doing so since leaving MEMS and boarding the buses that took them to Wemrock Brook.

The student said the MEMS pupils were not taken into the Wemrock Brook School, but instead remained on the buses until the end of the school day. At that point they boarded their regular bus home from the grounds of the Wemrock Brook School.

According to the student, the MEMS pupils were allowed to use the restrooms at Wemrock Brook in groups that were accompanied by a teacher.

A call to the office of the superintendent of schools had not been returned by press time Monday.

According to the police press release, law enforcement authorities eventually determined that MEMS was safe, but since the students had already been bused to Wemrock Brook, the decision was made by school administrators to have them transported home without being taken back to MEMS.

When asked, police officials said they were not aware of what transpired once the students were transported to Wemrock Brook and therefore could not comment on the procedures followed by school administrators once the students left MEMS.

An investigation that involved Man-alapan Patrolman Michael Hoppock and detectives Sam Britton, Eric Schmidt and Paul Seetoo allowed police to "develop a suspect and establish sufficient probable cause to sign complaints against the suspect."

The 14-year-old male MEMS pupil was placed under arrest by police at his Manalapan home at about 8 p.m. March 2, the day after the bomb threat and school evacuation. He was charged with creating a false public alarm and making terroristic threats and was placed in the Monmouth County Youth Detention Center, Freehold Township.

Personnel responding to MEMS on March 1 included canine units from the Monmouth County Sheriff's Department, the Wall Township Police Department, the Brick Township Police Department, the West Windsor Police Department and the New Brunswick Police Department.

Also responding with the Manalapan Police Department were the Manalapan Township Fire Company, the English-town Fire Department, the Englishtown-Manalapan First Aid Squad and Manal-apan Assistant Fire Marshal Rick Hogan.

Police said the investigation is continuing.