By Alexa Epitropoulos | aepitropoulos@alextimes.com
Francis C. Hammond Middle School has been cleared by police after it the school was locked down and students were later evacuated due to a threat.
Alexandria City Public Schools announced the middle school, located at 4646 Seminary Road, was locked down on its website and on social media at 10 a.m. At that time, no explanation was given as to why. ACPS said in an update at 10:35 a.m. that the school received a threat that wasn’t known to be credible but was being treated as credible.
The threat was later revealed to be a bomb threat against the school that was issued via Twitter at 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday night. The user, whose account was created on Dec. 10, tweeted at the school’s Twitter account that he or she would bomb the school on Thursday at noon. The tweet went on to say “if bombing fail’s [sic] it will be school shooter.” The Twitter user had been suspended as of 12:48 p.m. on Thursday.
Alexandria Police Department officers arrived at the scene and searched the school building. Meanwhile, Francis C. Hammond students were transported on buses to T.C. Williams High School, where they remained until the scene is cleared by APD shortly before 1 p.m.
Students are now returning to the middle school.
This post will be updated as more information becomes available.