Students at Rancho Cotate High return to class; police continue bomb threat probe

Students returned to Rohnert Park’s Rancho Cotate High School on Thursday, one day after a bomb threat emailed to staff led officials to evacuate campus.

The threat of violence, the second in nine days aimed at the Snyder Lane school, is being investigated by police. Detectives working with assistance from the FBI have not identified a suspect in either case, Rohnert Park Public Safety Director Brian Masterson said. Police don’t yet know if the threats were related.

“Here we are less than two weeks later - nine days - and we have another one. It’s concerning,” Masterson said. “We certainly would like to hold accountable the (individuals) responsible. As you can imagine, it’s disruptive to the school and we spent a lot of time and resources.”

Threatening that “bombs and other forms of violence” would befall the campus, the email was sent to several Rancho Cotate staff members just after ?11:30 a.m., according to Robert Haley, superintendent of the ?Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District.

Principal Amie Carter said four probation officers and two officers on bicycles were already on campus Wednesday when the emails arrived, and they helped facilitate a quick response to get everyone outside and onto the football field. All told, about 1,500 students plus nearly 100 staff were evacuated.

“We couldn’t have asked for a more immediate response,” ?Carter said.

Officers and a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy with a trained bomb-sniffing dog - a golden retriever named Boomer who recently finished explosive detection school - searched for a bomb or weapons on school grounds, finding none.

All students were sent home and the campus was deemed safe by about 1 p.m.

“We feel really confident this is a depraved and sick hoax but we’re always going to respond with every security action possible,” Carter said.

The earlier threat was made about 5:45 p.m. Feb. 27 when a caller using what sounded like a voice-distorting program called 911 and said a bomb programmed to go off the next morning had been planted at the Rancho Cotate campus, according to Masterson. It was evening, and school was not in session, but there were two small student groups on campus, including lacrosse players holding practice and a group involved in wood or metal work.

“We asked them to end practice and to have their parents pick them up and some drove themselves home,” Masterson said. “We locked down the campus, and we used the Sheriff’s Office bomb dog to check areas mentioned in the threat.”

They found no evidence of a bomb or any other type of weapon on school grounds. School resumed the next day.

“We are working on any possible leads,” Masterson said Thursday.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.