LaFayette High School was released from lockdown shortly after noon today following a “non credible” bomb threat.

“They did find a bomb threat written on a stall door in a restroom,” said Walker County Schools coordinator Elaine Womack. She estimates that the threat was found around 10:45 a.m.

“So they called in our school resource officer first, Billy Mullis, who then of course according to protocol called in the LaFayette Police Department,” Womack explained. “Their team came over and looked at the threat. It was not specific, so they deemed it not credible. So they went into lockdown and then they swept the whole building – classrooms, hallways, restrooms. Nothing of any specific nature was found.”

Officials do not know who the guilty party may be.

“They are interviewing students at this time to get any information that they can,” said Womack.

In all, students were out of their classes for approximately 45 minutes to one hour while police swept the building.

Womack would like to remind the students of LaFayette High School that such incidents of falsified bomb threats are a dangerous deterrent to their education. “Again, we call on students to be interested in their instruc-tion and not anything of this nature,” she said. “Ms. Mathis has said again that those responsible will be held to the strictest discipline and law enforcement that can be applied.”

Today’s bomb threat follows one a little more than a week ago. On Friday, Feb. 4, LaFayette High students were ushered outside and eventually released from school due to a bomb threat – this one involving a suspicious-looking item left in a bathroom sink in addition to a scrawled threat on a boys’ bathroom wall. The item turned out to be a handmade contraption consisting of a AAA Duracell Procell box filled with matches, paper and two tacks that was wrapped in a Germ-X brand hand sanitizer wrapper.

A full evacuation and search of the school by officers armed with bomb-sniffing dogs proved the item to be a hoax. Students were sent home for the day to avoid waiting outside in the cold rain while officials searched the school.

Seventeen-year old LaFayette High School student Johnathon Parker was arrested Mon-day, Feb. 7 for inciting the Feb. 4 bomb threat. He is facing two felony counts of terroristic threats and one felony count of transmitting a false public alarm. He will be tried as an adult on all counts.

Officials warned Monday, Feb. 14 that any students found to be guilty of the most recent LaFayette High School bomb threat will be prosecuted as strictly as Parker and to the full extent of the law.