Police arrested an unidentified juvenile Tuesday afternoon on gun charges after students reported an online threat made toward Ritenour High School.
Ritenour School District Superintendent Chris Kilbride said Tuesday that high school students alerted school officials to a shooting threat on social media, but it did not appear to be directed at a specific person. They also received a tip from the Courage to Report Tipline through the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Kilbride said.
The information included in the online tip helped officers to identify and locate the suspect, police said.
Officials at Husky Academy immediately locked down the school campus and ordered that everyone remain in place, officials said. The school is located within four minutes of Ritenour High School.
Officers from several jurisdictions responded and found the suspect sitting inside a vehicle with a loaded gun in the parking lot of Husky Academy in Overland around 2 p.m., within 24 minutes of school officials and police receiving the alert, Kilbride said. Officials said a short foot chase ensued, and the suspect was arrested a block away.
No shots were fired, and no one was injured, police said. The suspect is a former Ritenour High School student and is being held at the St. Ann Police Department, officials said.
“Our focus in the Ritenour School District is teaching and learning, and unfortunately situations like this take 100% of our attention, create a level of fear, a level of anxiety in the community,” Kilbride said Tuesday.
“We have become quite adept at getting to the bottom of these threats,” he added. “That is an absolute credit to our administrators, to our crisis team and to our local law enforcement first responders. We certainly don’t want any student to experience what our former student experienced today, but we don’t want this community to experience this situation any further.”
Responding law enforcement included the St. Ann, Breckenridge Hills, Overland and St. John police departments.
This was the second shooting threat made within a week against the Ritenour School District.
Last week, Ritenour High School canceled in-person classes Thursday and held them virtually following another unrelated threat discovered online. Classes resumed last Friday after police confirmed the threat was unsubstantiated, Kilbride said.
Classes at Ladue Horton Watkins High School were also canceled on Tuesday following an unsubstantiated bomb threat.
On Sept. 11, the Centralia, Illinois, Police Department took an 11-year-old girl into custody after a threat to harm anyone who went to Centralia Junior High School in Centralia.
Ritenour school officials said despite Tuesday’s incident, classes at Ritenour High School will be held in person on Wednesday.
Julie Hahn, Ritenour School District assistant superintendent, encouraged students and the general community to keep speaking up.
“I just want to say how important it is for us to collaborate with our law enforcement and for our students to speak up and keep everyone safe,” she said.
Individuals can report safety concerns through the Courage to Report Tipline. The Ritenour School District also has a safety line where tips about safety concerns can be submitted.
