Anniversary, shooting has LV officials on alert

Thursday, May 20, 1999 | 11:37 a.m.

A message posted on the Internet calling for a nationwide walkout of high school students today -- the one-month anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado and the morning of another school shooting in Georgia -- has Las Vegas school officials on alert.

At Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas, where precinct revoting is taking place because of irregularities in the May 4 primary, additional North Las Vegas Police and School District patrols have been added, officials said.

Voting also is taking place at Lincoln Elementary in North Las Vegas, School District spokesman Ray Willis said, noting that security also has been heightened there to ensure safety.

"The rumor mill has been working overtime," Willis said. "The rumors that had been going around shortly after Columbine had subsided, but as the end of the school year nears they appear to be escalating. School District Police are checking out every rumor."

Willis said the rumor that a Cheyenne student, who allegedly was suspended or expelled, threatened to do harm today is one of many unsubstantiated rumors.

The latest local concern apparently stems from a message someone put on the Internet calling for walkouts and other demonstrations to mark the one-month anniversary of the killings in Littleton, Colo., a suburban Denver community.

The April 20 slayings of 12 students and a teacher and the apparent suicides of the two alleged killers, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, at the Colorado school has heightened concerns for student safety around the nation. Twenty-one others were wounded in that shooting spree.

In Las Vegas a number of students reportedly have been suspended in the past month for making remarks about potential school violence or similar threats.