Robotic Bomb Threats Hit Wyoming High Schools

With input from Cap City News and Cowboy State Daily.

A wave of automated voicemails threatening bombs and school shootings hit high schools around Wyoming on Wednesday – but law enforcement says the calls were a hoax that came from outside the US and posed no credible danger.

The scary messages, many with a computerized foreign-sounding voice, told school staff a device had been planted and would detonate at 1 p.m., and warned that anyone who moved the device would be “shot up.” The calls landed late Tuesday night and were found by school personnel Wednesday morning.

“It’s to disrupt and scare and to create panic. We can never not take these threats seriously,” Chance Walkama, chief deputy of operations for the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office, told Cowboy State Daily.

Still, investigators quickly traced the origin to overseas and treated the threats as not credible.

Even so, authorities treated the situation seriously: multiple schools were swept by K-9 teams, surveillance footage from the evening was reviewed, and some campuses briefly locked down while checks were under way. Officials said the sweeps found nothing and students and staff were safe.

Affected schools included Burns Jr./Sr. High and Pine Bluffs High in Laramie County, Wheatland High (which also put a nearby elementary on lockdown), Upton High, Worland High, Ten Sleep School, Saratoga High and several Carbon County schools, among others. Burns Mayor Joe Nicholson posted that local schools had been checked and were “clear.”

Platte County deputies said there was “no reason to believe that the physical safety of any student or staff was ever in danger.” Wyoming DCI has been notified, and incidents like this are typically reported up to federal partners because the calls originated beyond local law enforcement’s reach.

“These threats are showing up more often,” Walkama said, estimating Wyoming deals with similar hoax calls about three or four times a year.

He added that officers will keep an increased presence around schools for the rest of the week as an added precaution.

Investigators continue to track the origins and spread of the calls; anyone with relevant information is asked to contact local law enforcement.