Full Notification

At approximately 0735 hours this morning, the Denville Police Department received information reporting that an act of violence was going to occur at the Morris County School of Technology. At roughly the same moment in time, the school received similar information from a second source.

As both staff and students were arriving on campus for the school day, an immediate decision was necessary to ensure the safety of the students, staff and campus. In conjunction with school administration, the campus was placed on lockdown. All students and faculty on site initiated lockdown procedures, safely securing themselves in classrooms. All arriving students and faculty were turned away from the facility to return to their sending districts, home or to a supervised staging area to await further instructions from the school.

Immediately following the school being placed in lockdown, an intensive investigation into the initial reports, which originated on social media, was conducted with the assistance of the Butler Police Department and the Passaic County Sheriff' Department. In addition, the Morris County Sheriff's Office and other local assets responded to the scene to assist, to include the Sheriff's Emergency Response Team (SERT), the K-9 Section and Bomb Unit.

During the course of this investigation, it was determined that a current threat did not exist involving the Morris County School of Technology. As soon as this information was verified, a room to room search was conducted of the campus by law enforcement officers on scene to ensure that no threats existed and all those students and staff members currently in lockdown were unharmed.

At the conclusion of this search, which occurred at approximately 0920 hours, the school was removed from lockdown. At that time, all students and staff members on site were briefed on what took place by law enforcement and school administration. Several parents who had arrived at the school to pick up their children were then also briefed on what took place.

The school administration ultimately decided that the school would continue with its normally scheduled school day. However, students, along with their parents, were given the option to sign out of school early if they chose to do so.

The Denville Police Department would like to thank and commend all of the students and staff who were on site this morning for putting into practice all of their training in how to react to such a situation. We are very fortunate that this did not turn out to be a true threat and no one was injured or worse.

The Denville Police Department would also like to thank the following agencies for their assistance during this incident: the Morris County Sheriff's Department, the New Jersey State Police, the Morris County Office of Emergency Management, the Butler Police Department, the Passaic County Sheriff's Department and the Parsippany Police Department.

Additional information may be released by the Morris County Sheriff's Office.