SHAWANO, WI (WTAQ) – Shawano Police Chief Dan Mauel says a 14-year-old will be referred to the Shawano County District Attorney after admitting to creating a school threat in the snow at Sturgeon Park earlier this month.
Police say the April 4th threat appears to have been a joke, and there was never any intent to harm anyone, but nobody is laughing.
“In this case, we are going to do the maximum that we can.”
He says they chose to go that route, rather than just issuing a citation.
Chief Mauel says he felt a message needed to be sent to the teen, and to anyone thinking about threatening school safety.
“Anymore of these type of threats will be met with the same consequences. If the attempt is to close the schools down, that is not going to happen.”
He says that is the maximum that they can do as a police department, and the rest is up to the District Attorney’s office.
“Very serious charges could be issued here.”
He says one key element to the process will be having social services involved to make help the teen learn from the mistake.
“We don’t want to just throw a consequence at a 14-year-old and not have them understand why it was wrong and what to do in the future.”
He says the hope would be that once the teen becomes an adult, that they would be able to make good decisions in the future.
Police say at this time, they do not believe that this threat was related to the first threat found written on a picnic table at Memorial Park a week earlier.
The Shawano School District and Shawano Police Department continue to work together in the investigation.
