Huntington, West Virginia — A Cabell Midland High School student is under investigation for allegedly making threats of violence at the school or against students and staff at the school. The incident was discovered and the student was taken into police custody on Sunday.
The alert originated from cybersecurity measures built into the county school system's online network.
“We have systems that allow us to monitor what's happening within the network, the devices and connections that students and teachers use to interact in school. We've found these kinds of red flags regarding the language people use. We can monitor the content in case that happens,” Cabell County Schools spokeswoman Ashley Stevens said.
The system monitors school-issued electronic devices and flags specific words that may raise concerns and require further investigation. The system led to weekend actions involving Cabell Midland students. Stevens could not say the age or grade of the student or the nature of the threat.
“I cannot comment on that as it is part of an ongoing investigation,” she explained.
She said it is not a full-time monitoring system, but allows school officials to run an automated system that flags words and phrases of concern. Stevens said that to her knowledge, this is the first time a threat has been detected using a cybersecurity system.
“We always take threats to students and staff very seriously, so a similar threat would have resulted in a similar response. I didn't know of any threats that were elevated to that level,” she explained.
