DECEMBER 23 • 2021 | 17

governmental levels to create 
laws that will lessen the threat 
of gun violence. 
“It is unconscionable that 
this is how the situation has 
devolved,” Arbit said. “We 
have been able to protect 
airports and other public 
institutions, and schools have 
not been prioritized.” 

POSSIBLE FALSE ALARM
On Monday afternoon, West 
Bloomfield Deputy Chief 
Curt Lawson said the image 
of the threat was created 
on SnapChat, at first in 
a closed group, and then 
shared multiple times and 
spread over Instagram. It 
is not clear from where the 
image originated or even if 
the threatening message was 
intended for West Bloomfield 
High School or Oakdale 

Academy in Waterford or 
other schools with similar 
names in another part of the 
country. Two individuals are 
currently being investigated 
and they are both juveniles, 
Lawson added.
“We don’t know where that 
threat originated from, and 
it’s going to be somewhat 
difficult to find out,” Lawson 
told the JN. “But we do know 
someone who shared it within 
a closed group and that’s how 
we found two individuals. 
We will determine if they are 
going to be prosecuted or not, 
but we do not believe at this 
time there is a threat that we 
know of to West Bloomfield 
Schools.”
Lawson said West 
Bloomfield Police will 
continue to remain a visible 
presence on school grounds, 

and his investigation teams 
will also continue to work 
with school administrators 
to identify future potential 
threats. 
As of now, Lawson said 
more than 30 different 
cases in Oakland County 
have been forwarded to the 
Oakland County prosecutor’s 
office that involve threats of 
violence to schools.
Ilanit Atias, whose son 
attends Seaholm High School 
in Birmingham, said she has 
taught him to be in “high-
alert mode” while in school 
and to pay attention to his 
surroundings when passing 
in the hall “just in case.”
“I tell him, ‘You can check 
your phone in class, but when 
you are walking between 
classes, be alert,’” said Atias, 
an Israeli who has lived in the 

United States for the past two 
years.
She added that she never 
thought she would have to 
utilize her training learned 
in the Israeli Defense Forces 
now that she lives in the 
United States. “I have to take 
all my soldier skills and teach 
them to my son, even though 
we don’t live in the Middle 
East, and that is just sad. 
There needs to be a way to 
allow for the creation of an 
executive order that expels 
children or prevents them 
from ever learning in an 
in-person classroom setting 
if there are continued threats 
that terrorize the lives of our 
children.” 
All West Bloomfield 
schools will be going virtual 
and will resume in-person 
instruction on Jan. 3. 

You don’t have to know Yiddish to 

know Jewish Family Service.

We’re here to serve the whole community by 

connecting people to our wide range of services 

including counseling, transportation, financial assistance 

and services that meet the needs of older adults. 

To see all the ways we can help, visit jfsdetroit.org 
or call our Resource Center at 248.592.2313.

This past year has

given us a lot of tsuris.

We’ll give you 

somewhere to turn.

