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Argo Community High School has rescheduled its graduation ceremony for May 28 after two juveniles were arrested on allegations they made threats on social media, officials said.
The high school’s graduation was postponed just hours before it was to start Tuesday. The rescheduled event will be 7:30 p.m. at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Superintendent Jill Kingsfield said in a statement.
The first threat was made Sunday on Snapchat and read, “For those who think I’m scared I myself will be shooting every class at Argo Community High School so if you come you are a target,” school officials said.
The Summit school was placed on a soft lockdown Monday and a juvenile was arrested around 5 a.m. that day, the school said.
A second person, a juvenile from Joliet, was arrested Tuesday after posting a follow-up message on Snapchat that read, “I’m going to finish the job,” the school said.
The juvenile has no connection to the school and “is not a viable threat to our school community,” Kingsfield said.
“Due to the extenuating circumstances surrounding the past 48 hours, and because graduation is supposed to be a joyous and celebratory event, graduation has been cancelled for this evening and will be rescheduled,” Kingsfield said in a Facebook post. “We know many of you have family members who have travelled here to be with your family for this celebration and we apologize for the inconvenience.”
Senior Chris Castellano said he was with a friend Tuesday preparing for graduation when “out of nowhere” the school sent out emails informing students and parents that the event had been postponed.
He said he was surprised but believed it was the right move, given the circumstances.
“I feel like it was the right call because, like, why take the risk?” Castellano said. “I mean, obviously, it’s highly unlikely that anything would happen, but like I said, why even take the risk, you know?”
Dozens of students lined up outside the school Wednesday morning to receive security checks before entering the building, as they have all week, and multiple Summit police officers were on scene to monitor the situation.
Students were mixed in their assessment of the school’s response to the situation, with some crediting Argo officials for taking extra security precautions and others criticizing the security checks as ineffective.
Reynaldo and Jafet, who are juniors at Argo, said that while they initially were fearful of returning to school after the first threat Sunday, the police presence had calmed their nerves.
“There’s police outside, like, watching around the building and everything so no one random just comes into the building, which is good,” Reynaldo said. “I feel safe right now.”
Junior Eric Castillo, on the other hand, said he felt exposed standing in long lines outside the school awaiting a security check.
“It doesn’t feel safe anymore because right now we’re all in line, basically, so if there was a shooter we’re all open to it,” he said, adding that he did not believe the cursory security checks and pat-downs were actually effective.
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“They don’t even check us well,” Castillo said. “If we were to have a gun in our pockets … they wouldn’t know.”
Castellano applauded the security enhancements and called the school’s response “more than adequate.”
He said he wasn’t concerned about returning to school Monday because he trusted that the school and law enforcement had the situation under control but that his parents had kept him home as a precaution.
“(The school) called in the FBI and they were talking with multiple police departments,” Castellano said. “They had police from Hodgkins here yesterday, so I think they’re definitely taking all the right steps to ensure the protection of their students.”
Summit police Sgt. Robert Mase said Wednesday that two juveniles had been arrested and charged in connection with the threats but declined to disclose their ages or the charges they face. He said they were no longer in custody.
The district has not said whether an Argo student made the first threat, even though students believed that to be the case. Mase said that a juvenile who lives “in the area” made the threat but could not say whether he attended Argo.
He said he expected his department to have a security presence outside the school for the remainder of the week but noted that school security, not Summit officers, were responsible for the actual security checks.