Officials from two local school districts have said the recent social media threat made to a “PHS” school had nothing to do with their campuses and there was never a threat to any of those facilities.
Matt Dillon, superintendent of the Petal School District, and Steven Hampton, superintendent of the Lamar County School District, said the threat did not pertain to Petal High School or Purvis High School. The social media post, which was made by an unidentified individual from an unidentified location, was brought to officials’ attention sometime around September 13 and stated “If you go to PHS, don’t go tomorrow period.”
Dillon said his administration was notified of the post that morning, at which point officials immediately launched an investigation into the matter and determined the threat was made against another school in Mississippi.
“To be clear, this incident does not involve the Petal School District or any of our campuses,” Dillon said in a statement. “There is no threat or danger to our students, faculty, or staff. We have contacted the administration and law enforcement of the district affected by the threat and given them all the information we have on the situation.
“As you may be aware, threats against schools have been circulating on social media over the past few weeks. We all play a vital role in any school-wide safety effort; it is the duty and responsibility of students, staff, and families to report any potential threats to the proper individuals. We also encourage families to stay engaged in conversations with their student(s) about the appropriate use of social media.”
One comment on the post states “if y’all treating this like a game wait till I see y’all ‘mfs’ in the hallway we have 6th graders at the jrh lil a** kids if y’all keep saying shi and this ‘mfs’ actually does it I promise you if he don’t kill you I’ll beat the living sh** out of you.”
Hampton said the threat could have been linked to any number of “PHS” schools throughout the state or country, including a school in Florida that went into lockdown after the threat was posted.
“It could be any number of schools,” he said. “We had several parents who assumed the ‘PHS referred to Purvis High School, and it did not.
“We don’t know (exactly) when the post was made, and we don’t know where in the world where it was made from. We couldn’t even determine whether it was posted (that day); it could have been years ago. This has happened a number of times, where people see initials and assume it’s (their) school, so we get into a situation where there’s a panic, and there’s no reason for a panic.”
