Student’s English assignment shuts down school in northeastern B.C.

By Taylor Bendig

EDMONTON — Calm has returned to a northeastern B.C. school after a police investigation revealed that an alarming letter posted throughout the school was actually a student’s English assignment.

Classes were cancelled at North Peace Senior Secondary School in Fort St. John on Friday, after a staff member found a suspicious letter posted throughout the school the evening before. The letter “spoke of the end of the world and the writer acquiring a fully automatic firearm to better defend himself from threats in a post-apocalyptic world,” RCMP said.

Rumours quickly spread through online social-media sites about the letter’s intent, and concerns were reported to staff and police.

“Because the story involved a firearm and had some violence in it, and was posted out of context ... there was some concern that it might relate to some intention toward the school,” said Lesley Lahaye, assistant superintendent of the Peace River North school district. “We just felt that there was a small margin of risk, but any measure of risk ... justified the response.”

With the school empty, Fort St. John RCMP joined staff and school district personnel is investigating the letter. They discovered its author, proud of his work, had posted it for display throughout the school without explaining its nature.

Lahaye said staff will be reviewing guidelines for posting material in the school since the incident, adding they’d learned a lot about the power of online social networking.

“It’s been an interesting learning experience for us about how social media works, and how easy it is for rumours to spread far and wide,” she said.


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