This story will be updated.
Schools across Maine have been hit with multiple active shooter threats that police believe to be hoaxes.
Sanford and Portland high schools were locked down after receiving shooting threats Tuesday morning. A Sanford dispatcher told responding officers that a similar threat also was received in Gardiner from a man who identified himself with the same name and called on the same phone number.
Schools in the Bangor area received similar reports as well as Fort Fairfield Middle/High School in Aroostook County.
The Maine State Police and the Maine Information Analysis Center are assisting local law enforcement across the state in their investigations of the “active shooter threats,” according to Shannon Moss, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety, which believes the threats to be a hoax.
Sanford police received a call reporting an active shooter at the high school at 8:20 a.m.
The caller said they were a teacher and that there were injuries. They described a white man wearing a black jacket and black pants carrying a long rifle, Sanford police Lt. Matthew Gagne said.
There were two school resource officers on the scene at the time of the call.
No injuries were found after a thorough search from several law enforcement agencies, authorities said. A dozen different ambulances from nearby towns showed up at the scene.
“It’s just the world we live in that we have to be ready to respond to such things,” Sanford fire Chief Steve Benotti said.
Gagne was not able to say if the call was connected to similar threats received by other schools. He said the FBI was also involved.
Police are attempting to contact the caller, whom Gagne believes was someone impersonating a teacher. The caller did not give a name.
Students were bused to the Memorial Gym. Police are encouraging parents to pick up their children there.
“This is the first time anything like this has come to the Sanford school,” Gagne said. “The fallout from that emotionally, for the teachers and students, is probably going to be long felt.”
The Portland Police Department said on Twitter that Portland High School went into lockdown after a 911 call came in Tuesday morning reporting an active shooting. About 20 police officers were in the process of clearing the school while students remained on lockdown but first responders reported that there was not a threat, according to the police department.
A spokesperson for the FBI’s Boston Division said the agency is aware of “numerous” active shooter threats made against schools throughout Maine, but that it has no information to suggest that they are credible. The FBI will continue to assist law enforcement in Maine and urged the public to remain vigilant, the spokesperson said.
School districts in the Bangor area received similar hoax reports, Bangor Superintendent James Tager said in a voice message to parents. The city’s schools are safe, but Bangor police will have an increased presence throughout the day, he said.
“This is part of a national trend of these hoaxes being called into police departments and other first responders,” Tager said. “Called swatting, the people involved try to create panic in local communities.”
In Fort Fairfield, the school went into a soft lockdown — with no one allowed to enter or exit the building and hallways and restrooms cleared — following a report of a shooting in its chemistry lab, Principal Tanya Staples wrote to parents. The school stayed in the soft lockdown until police gave the all clear.
