School Superintendent said no to Sheriff’s request for robocall

DAHLONEGA, Ga. –- Lumpkin County School Superintendent Dr. Robert Brown refused repeated requests by Sheriff Stacy Jarrard to issue a robocall last Thursday after a threat was reported by a Lumpkin County High School student.

“The first I heard about a threat was Thursday evening when parents started calling me at home,” Jarrard said. “I couldn’t hardly hang up the phone before the next call came in from parents wanting to know what was going on at the school.” Jarrard continued,“That went on until about 1:30 in the morning.”

Jarrard said he made his first call to school officials around 6 p.m. on Thursday, September 21, to request that a robocall be issued in order to keep parents informed about what had occurred and to let them know if it was safe to send students to school on Friday. Then he called twice more but each time, his request for a robocall was refused.

“They said they didn’t want to scare parents because they didn’t believe the threat was credible,” he said.

But as students got home from school on Thursday, word of the threat began to spread and soon, the Facebook pages began to blow up with frightened parents seeking information.

Jarrard said today the threat “doesn’t appear to be believable,” but he added that his office is still investigating. “I met with the principal, SRO, the child, and the child’s mother who was extremely cooperative and helpful. We have taken all of the child’s electronic equipment to see if there is anything of a threatening nature.”

Fetch Your News is a hyper local news outlet that covers Dawson, Lumpkin, White, Fannin, Gilmer, Pickens, Union, Towns and Murray counties as well as Cherokee County in N.C. FYN attracts 300,000+ page views per month, 3.5 million impressions per month and approximately 15,000 viewers per week on FYNTV.com and up to 60,000 Facebook page reach. If you would like to follow up-to-date local events in any of those counties, please visit us at FetchYourNews.com