Full Notification

The Sheboygan Police Department investigated two separate threats tonight to local schools. Both investigations led to arrests and the threats were determined to not be credible. There is no viable threat to any of the schools in Sheboygan.

Although these threats did not represent any real danger to our community, a large number of people suffered needless anxiety because of them. We want people to understand the best way to handle these kinds of posts. The right course of action is to report threats to the proper authorities. This may be a parent, school staff, or the police.

What you should not do is continue to share these posts on social media. There is a significant difference between talking to someone in person about a situation, and spreading that information (often from unknown sources) to all of your friends. That is how fear spreads rapidly through an entire community.

We want people to be smart and to be safe. If you see something, say something! But we also have to make sure we’re not helping to spread fear. We realize most people are not trying to spread fear but only want to make people aware of a possible threat. But these kinds of posts are appropriately considered “viral.” If you were sick you’d go to the doctor, you wouldn’t go to your friend’s birthday party and sneeze all over their cake.