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Police seek public’s help, offer cash reward, in series of bomb threats at McGann-Mercy High School

Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Riverhead Police are asking for the public’s help with finding the person or people responsible for the bomb threats at Bishop McGann-Mercy and Riverhead high schools last month. Police are offering a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Someone reported bomb threats at the Catholic diocesan junior-senior high school on Ostrander Avenue on Jan. 14, 15 and 30. On Jan. 15, after McGann-Mercy students had been evacuated to Riverhead High School and were assembled in the public school’s auditorium while police searched the parochial school, a second bomb threat was called in to Riverhead High School, forcing the evacuation of those premises.

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A bomb threat emptied McGann-Mercy High School again on Jan. 30, disrupting students’ Regents exams.
Photo: Peter Blasl

Last Friday, Jan. 30, another bomb threat was made to McGann-Mercy, as students there were taking Regents exams. Students were evacuated and test papers secured, a school spokesperson said. Officers first searched the junior high building and once it was cleared, all students were taken into the junior high where they were given back their tests. A “variance report” will be filed with the State Education Department “indicating the unique circumstance of the test,” the school said in a statement.

Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS or the Riverhead Police Department at 727-4500 extension 332 or extension 327. All calls will be kept confidential.

Someone who falsely reports a bomb on school grounds when the school is occupied or likely to be occupied may be prosecuted for falsely reporting an incident in the first degree, which is a class D felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison under N.Y. Penal Law.

 

Top photo: McGann-Mercy students huddled on the school’s athletic field following the first bomb threat called in to the school on Jan. 14. Photo: Peter Blasl