Parents and relatives of students at four New Mexico high schools were on edge last week after reports of an active shooter.
Law enforcement responded to calls involving Volcano Vista, Rio Rancho, Bernalillo and Santa Fe high schools, sites where shootings were reported. The calls proved to be hoaxes but are no laughing matter.
“This is no joke,” one Bernalillo High School parent told KOB 4 recently. “This is no joke.”
It’s also no joke to New Mexico state Sen. Craig Brandt (R-Dist. 40), who wants such action to be a felony. Brandt introduced a bill during the 2022 legislative session to make a false school shooting threat a felony. It wasn’t a punishable offense at the time. Lawmakers eventually passed a law making it a misdemeanor.
Brandt said that multiple hoax threats throughout the state last week prove stiffer penalties are needed.
“No matter where a child lives in our state they deserve to be safe at school,” he told KOB 4. “I mean that’s the one place we need to make sure they can go when they don’t have to worry about these kinds of issues.”
Brandt noted that he plans to reintroduce legislation to make shooting threats a felony.
“It’s very common sense,” he said. “If it’s going to be a felony to be a bomb threat it should be a felony to call in and threaten to shoot up a school.”
Brandt is also the co-sponsor of a bill to provide more than $100 million to public schools for security and career technical education.
“We have a lot of schools and a lot of children that need to be protected and I really think that needs to be a number one priority for us,” he said.
Legislators in the Senate Finance Committee heard the bill and recommended its passage, the KOB 4 report said.
