14 | NOVEMBER 24 • 2022 

OUR COMMUNITY
ON THE COVER

the message ‘If you see something, say 
something,’ even if someone casually 
makes a comment.” 
Patton said some of the threats have 
been coming from children as young as 
10 years old. He implored that in these 
times, parents need to sit down with young 
children and explain that threats are not 
jokes, and it is OK to tell an adult if they 
know about another child who is thinking 
about calling in a threat of violence to a 
school. He says families often regret not 
explicitly talking about what a threat is, the 
law and what the consequences can be for 
a child, their family and the community.
“If you think someone is contemplating 
something, either self-harm or harm to 
anyone else, we are going to be aggressive,” 
Patton asserted. “We will knock on doors 
and wake up parents to investigate.” 
Bloomfield Hills Schools Superintendent 
Pat Watson, who recently hosted a 

Pat Watson

roundtable at BHS about 
public and school safety with 
Patton and other public law 
enforcement, safety and 
educational professionals 
across West Bloomfield and 
Bloomfield Township in 
attendance, said even as the 
Oxford anniversary approaches, threats 
have increased. 
“We want our primary focus to be 
on supporting our community through 
this difficult anniversary,” Watson said. 
“Unfortunately, we are also faced with the 
reality that after a major school tragedy, 
copycat threats occur at an exponential 
rate. Districts throughout our county have 
seen just that. 
“
Across Oakland County, students have 
been making bomb threats, writing threats 
on walls and verbalizing threats,” Watson 
continued. “These threats have been made 
in and out of school, including on social 
media. Social media posts have included 
challenges to see which school district can 
have the most lockdowns. 
“
After making verbal and written threats, 
students often insist the threats are jokes, 
or that they were just seeking attention,” he 
said. “This past year, the Oakland County 
Prosecutor’s Office has charged 42 cases of 

school threats. Whereas in the year before 
Nov. 30, 2020, there was only one case 
charged by the office.”
Last week, County Sheriff Mike 
Bouchard took to social media after 

Mike 
Bouchard 

another round of school 
threats. He created a video 
message to be shared at 
schools so students can 
“understand that not only will 
all reports of any school threat 
be taken seriously, students 
could face legal charges if 
caught making threats.” 
In the video, available at https://vimeo.
com/770857672, he says: “We have been 
inundated with threats all across this 
county … You need to understand, if 
you make a threat — whether or not you 
intend to carry it out — it is a crime.”

COMMISSION TO PREVENT 
GUN VIOLENCE
In September 2022, Oakland County 

Karen 
McDonald 

Prosecutor Karen McDonald 
created a 20-member 
commission of law 
enforcement, behavioral 
health, medical and 
educational, and social work 
professionals to create an 
evidence-based curriculum to 
prevent gun violence and mass shootings. 
The commission is charged with 
creating a curriculum that can teach 
students, teachers and parents about the 
signs that potential shooters exhibit before 
they turn violent.
McDonald, in an interview with the JN, 
said since last November, she has learned 
that the prevention of mass shootings must 
be approached from many angles, which 
include early recognition and intervention 
of potential mass shooters in addition to 
changing gun access laws. 
“Gun restriction laws of any kind are 
not the only answer,” McDonald said. “We 
started the commission because there 
are many things we can be doing on the 
prevention and intervention side. The 
challenge for the public is when you see or 
you know somebody is in crisis, who may 
harm themselves or others, what do you 

do?” 
McDonald said the only way to know 
if an individual is a credible threat is to 
activate threat assessment protocols that 
will create streams of communication 
between educators and school 
administrators, law enforcement, and 
medical and mental health professionals. 
She continued: “We need resources in 
place that can understand what threat that 
individual poses, what they need and how 
to keep in touch with them. We need to 
have a place to report a potential shooter 
before they have that gun in their hand.” 
Serving on McDonald’s commission is 
Gary Sikorski, director of Jewish 

Gary 
Sikorski

Community-Wide Security, 
an independent organization 
formed in March 2022 tasked 
with protecting and providing 
security resources and 
guidance to the Jewish 
community under the 
umbrella of the Jewish 
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. 
Sikorski sees his place on McDonald’s 
commission as a way for the Jewish 
community to “have a seat at the table” 
and sees it as an opportunity to share 
some of the lessons learned and some of 
the practices that have been in place, as 
Jewish institutions have felt particularly 
vulnerable with the rise of antisemitism 
and a series of attacks and threats in the 
last several years. 
Sikorski added that the Oxford High 
School shooting was a “punch in the gut” 
and a reminder that even with security 
systems in place, shootings of this nature 
can happen anywhere. 
“
Any time there is a school shooting, 
we reflect on what systems are in place. 
One of the benefits of having the security 
program that we do and having that in 
place is that we don’t have wild swings 
in gearing to respond to incidents. We 
maintain a consistent level of security 
and communication throughout our 
schools and agencies that do not require 
a wholesale change in response. This 
reaffirms what we do, and it also makes us 
reflect to change and evolve as situations 
change.” 

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