Friday 5 February 2016

There were three schools in "lockdown"

or evacuation yesterday - the result of "bomb threats".
Similar things have happened in two other states of Downunder in the past week.
When it happens police know that it is almost certainly a  hoax but they can't take the risk. They have to act. 
It's an immense waste of time and resources. It causes immense anxiety for all involved and it's exhausting for staff, students and parents. It is designed to be as disruptive as possible.
It's simple, too simple. It can be done long distance. Someone on the other side of the world can use an untraceable mobile phone and just announce there is a bomb. It costs them very little.
The mother of a child in one of the schools involved asked me, "What do these people get out of it? They can't see what is happening."
No, they can't. I told her I suspect that "these people" are not young idiots out to have fun. They are more likely sophisticated individuals who have planned the attacks rather carefully. Certainly the targets were interesting, one of them was  the "International"  High School, another was the High School in the CBD and another a school attached to one of the universities. They were not random targets.
It's a version of crying "Wolf! Wolf!". Those involved know that nobody will be prepared to take the risk of not investigating, of not taking the maximum precautions. 
It doesn't matter to the people who plan these attacks that they can't see what is going on. That isn't the issue as far as they are concerned. Their purpose is to cause disruption and anxiety. In all likelihood those involved are associated with places where real bomb threats are a daily occurrence. They may not live there but their sympathies may well lie there.
It is going to be very, very difficult to find these people. It is going to be even harder to stop them. They will have passed the baton on to the next person before the authorities reach them.
I would like to find them, lock them inside a building with multiple complex ticking parcels in hard to reach places and put them through the anxiety.
You see, one of the children is already too anxious about going to school because her school in another country was attacked. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sooner or later there will be a real threat, and it just might slip under the radar. Scary!

I cannot comprehend what it would be like for children who have faced the real thing elsewhere, but for most students it should be a bit of a lark to get out of classes for an hour or so. Unfortunately, there have been so many stories in the news from around the world of attacks on schools that even the most laid back Aussie student is aware of what might be about to happen.

To me it is shocking that schools are now surrounded by security fences, and not to keep students in.