An officer sits outside Woodridge Elementary School following the announcement of a threatening letter
By Sam Wroblewski, reporting by Andrew Augustus WPRO News
Cranston officials say the schools are business as usual one day after their community was mentioned in a letter threatening to behead elementary school children.
“Some parents are keeping their kids at home. Right now we just ran our attendance data, we have about a third,” said Cranston School Superintendent Judith Lundsten, “I was at Gladstone this morning and in one of their rooms they almost had 100% attendance.”
Cranston Mayor Allan Fung said he will be visiting most of the city’s schools with police to ensure all operations are running safely and smoothly.
“We’re in constant communication is absolutely critical from not only a law enforcement standpoint, but most importantly the schools and the administrations because we want to ensure there is a safe environment for our students as they are going to our schools,” said Fung.
Cranston resident Alfred Travieso said he was completely comfortable dropping his child off at school.
“I dropped off my son today and there was a cruiser and another officer that we’re friends with at the door, and that cruiser and officer had been there all day, so I do not have a problem whatsoever.”
Newly minted Chief of Cranston Police Michael Winquist said there will be an increased police presence around both public and private schools for the remainder of the week, but that the patrols will not disrupt the school day.
“When these threats come in we take them very serious, at the same time we don’t want these threats to disrupt our daily lives including the important work they do here educating students,” said Winquist.
Winquist said his department is closely working with Warwick and Johnston in their investigation and said the department is already tracking down several leads.
The letter said the individual would target children from all three cities on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
