Increased police presence at PJ’s no cause for alarm; example of cooperation

By Brandi Makuski

Officials from the Stevens Point School District sent out the alert to parents late Wednesday night:

“Student safety is our first concern and we will have increased police presence at our school tomorrow,” the message read in part.

In his email, sent shortly after 11 PM on Feb. 14, P.J. Jacobs Principal Dan Dobratz relayed to parents vague details of an incident involving a reported reference to violence inside the school.

In an interview on Feb. 15, Dobratz was nearly just as vague, referring most questions to the superintendent’s office.

“But I will say we can’t take this kind of report lightly,” Dobratz said. “Everybody’s being cooperative, our kids are great.”

Superintendent Craig Gerlach said the district’s response to the reported threat was “protocol” and incident was not related to a school shooting in Florida on Valentine’s Day.

Dobratz called Gerlach at home late Wednesday night to inform him of the report, Gerlach said.

“A parent overhead her daughter about [sic] a comment that was made on a safety issue,” Gerlach said. “As little as we knew last night—we didn’t have any evidence, didn’t have an opportunity to meet with anybody last night…we simply made the decision to have additional police in the school.”

All schools in the area have installed extra security measures over the past few years, to include door buzzers requiring someone inside to unlock entrances, and Gerlach said those elements “are there for a reason”.

“We’re dealing with kids; kids say stupid things all the time, adults say stupid things all the time. That could be all this is, but we’ll get to the bottom of it,” he said.

Gerlach said three plain-clothes detectives from the Stevens Point Police Dept. were at the school beginning at 7 AM on Thursday.

“We weren’t too sure of the credibility of the threat,” said Sgt. Tony Babl from SPPD. “But as a precaution, and in light of what happened in Florida, we had extra officers at the school to ease tensions.”

Babl said officers would spend time during the day to investigate the issue, and suspects their presence eased tensions for some students at the school, especially in light of the tragic school shooting on Wednesday.

“I stood outside and said ‘Good Morning,’ to every student,” Babl said. “We had a lot of students, and a few parents, thank us for being there. Maybe we’re preventing something from happening.”