Belleville high schools see increase in absences after threat circulates social media

Between 25 and 30% of Belleville high school students missed class on Thursday, after a threatening post was circulated on social media.

District 201 Superintendent Brian Mentzer said the origin of the post was unknown and did not specifically target either of Belleville’s public high schools. Families were alerted with a robocall Wednesday night, and extra police officers were assigned to Belleville East and Belleville West High Schools on Thursday.

Typically this year, Mentzer said attendance rates were around 91% for students — down slightly from a normal school year because of COVID-19 and quarantines. On Thursday, he said attendance was between 70 and 75%. The school district had 4,676 students in 2020, according to the Illinois Report Card.

“We’re being flexible with families and want to be compassionate,” Mentzer said.

Belleville Police Capt. Mark Heffernan said the extra patrols were assigned after Belleville high school students received shares or texted screen shots of the social media post.

The threat appeared to have been written on a white background and warned students to not go to school on Oct. 14, 2021 or “I’ll be seeing you in hell.” It included a slur against homosexuals.

“At this point in time, the only nexus to Belleville is that Belleville high school students received a message,” he said. “There’s nothing specific targeting a Belleville school nor is there anything in the message as to what type of incident they are talking about.”

No arrests have been made at this time, Heffernan said.

Even without any in the posts directly referencing Belleville, screenshots of posts that appear to be from Snapchat have been circulated online and in Facebook groups for Belleville parents. Some parents said their children had been sent screenshots of the posts.

In some cases, they were asking each other if they should keep their kids home.

Amanda Whitfield, of Belleville, said she kept her son, a junior at Belleville East, home on Thursday. In an interview Thursday night, she said she was still talking with her husband about whether their son should go to school on Friday. She first saw the posts in a Facebook group for Belleville 201 parents.

“You just don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it was a scare for today and it could happen tomorrow. ... It’s very concerning.”

Mentzer said that even though there was no indication that the post was linked to either high school, the school district wanted the community to be aware.

“Based on the information that we have, this was a non-specific post on social media that we don’t even know if it originated in Belleville, but as with any cases like this, safety is of utmost importance and we alerted the school district administration last night out of an abundance of caution so that they were aware we had received a report of this message,” Heffernan said.

This story was originally published October 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM.