Officer’s own son wrote note threatening school killings

Monday, June 8, 1998 | 10:26 a.m.

Now, the officer may be disciplined for mishandling the probe.

The 15-year-old boy, who has not been identified, was booked on two misdemeanor charges and was being held at a juvenile detention center Monday awaiting a psychological examination, KRNV-TV reported.

The youth said the letter threatening to kill the students at his high school near Lake Tahoe was a joke.

The Washoe County sheriff's sergeant has been reassigned to desk duty while a review is conducted to see if he tried to cover up the incident by leaving the matter to the school to deal with internally, Sheriff Richard Kirkland said Monday.

"He is in very serious trouble," Kirkland said.

The officer's son admitted to writing the note and leaving it in a school mailbox, where a female student found it on Thursday.

The note read:

"Hello to whoever the hell reads this. I plan to kill everyone in Incline High School in a total of 15 minutes before the police are notified and then commit suicidew (sic) to prove I..."

The letter ends there. Also typewritten on the page was the line, "There are seven levels."

The student who found the letter reported it to a teacher, who reported it to the sheriff's sergeant on campus, who turned out to be the boy's father.

The officer initiated the investigation that prompted his son's confession. School officials agreed to handle it internally and the boy spent the next two days sitting in the principal's office.

It wasn't until sheriff's commanders were reviewing the case reports that a lieutenant "realized the potential seriousness of a situation like this," Kirkland said.

The sergeant agreed to turn over his son if authorities issued an arrest warrant. But when the warrant was served on Saturday, the officer said his son and the boy's mother had left for California, he didn't know where they were and didn't know when they would be back, Kirkland said.

"We played a little hide and seek game here for about 24 hours," Kirkland said.

The boy returned on Sunday and was charged with misdemeanor charges of harassment and delivering a threatening letter. A detention hearing was held Monday and he was ordered to undergo psychiatric testing.