UPDATE (2:23 p.m.): Lee County Schools have announced the threat has been deemed not credible by law enforcement.
ORIGINAL STORY (1:16 p.m.): For the fifth time since November, Lee County High School was locked down Tuesday due to a threat of violence at the campus. The district announced the threat in Facebook post around 1 p.m.:
Two Sanford police officers were parked across Nash Street from the school around 1:10 p.m., but it was difficult from off campus to see whether a larger law enforcement presence was on the scene.
Lee County High School was locked down on Nov. 4 due to a bomb threat, and dozens of parents arrived to retrieve their children, who remained inside the school while law enforcement searched the campus. Students were released from school around 2 p.m. that day, and after further investigation the phone call was determined to have been a hoax.
There was another unspecified threat on Feb. 23, and the school was again placed on lockdown. That threat was also determined to not be credible, the district said at the time. In that case, students remained on campus until the situation was fully assessed.
March was the most disruptive month yet with regards to threats against LCHS, as well as Southern Lee High School. An initially unspecified threat – later described by the district as a threat of violence at the school – caused a lockdown on March 28. That night, the district announced the school would be closed the next day due to a different threat. Southern Lee also received a threat on March 29 – later determined to be not credible – which caused a lockdown.
Those threats came just days after three 9-year-old children and three adults were killed a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.
No one has been charged in connection with making the threats.
Tuesday’s lockdown comes a day after a former elementary school building – the old Jonesboro Elementary School on Cox Maddox Road – was heavily damaged in a fire. It’s unknown if there’s any connections between the bomb threats and the fire.