Nearly 20 Utah County schools received a non-credible threatening phone call, officials say

AMERICAN FORK — Several elementary schools in the Alpine School District received phone calls that involved “student safety” but were not deemed a credible threat, according to school officials.

According to a school district press release, about 20 of the 60 elementary schools received voice messages on Thursday during after-school hours. Because the message was left during off-hours, school employees did not hear the messages until Friday morning.

The school district said the phone messages “raised concern about student safety,” and local law enforcement was contacted.

“Law enforcement officials and our own safety and operations teams determined that there was no risk to any of our students associated with these phone messages,” the school district said in the press release.

The school district said that the messages were the same and originated from the same out-of-state source.

“We have been in communication with SIAC (Statewide Information & Analysis Center) as well as The Utah State Safety Center to make sure we have accurate information to continue our safety assessments,” the school district said. “We are following appropriate protocols as advised by those agencies.”

Lt. Stuart Fore with the American Fork Police Department told KSL TV that a man in California was arrested for his involvement in these phone calls.