CROSS LANES, W.Va. —
A Kanawha County school employee is in custody charged with making terroristic threats.
Sheriff’s deputies said Bruce Edward Stanley, 51, of Cross Lanes, made statements about making gas bombs. He was arrested when he reported to work at Cross Lanes Elementary School Thursday afternoon.
Kanawha County school officials placed the school on lock down as a precaution. The school was checked and nothing unusual was found. It was given the all clear.
Stanley, a custodian, was allegedly upset that he didn’t get a gift card given to some teachers at the school.
Investigators said Stanley was asked by other school employees what he would buy if he had gotten a gift card. According to the witnesses who overheard this conversation, Stanley made the comment that he would have purchased gas and made some bombs. Witnesses also said they overheard him talking about the gas bombs again while in the cafeteria of the school.
Investigators said three co-workers took those comments as a viable threat and called 9/11.
School principal Vanessa Brown, in an interview with WSAZ said her students and the school handled the situation well and the lock down was really standard procedure at the school.
“We’ve started using the drivers license readers so we are using all the security measures. Our doors are locked during the days so as far as the effect on instruction it goes exactly the same way,” she said during the interview with WSAZ. “The only thing that happens is children don’t use the playground during a lock down or go to the computer labs or the library.”
She said the school was briefly on lock down while sheriff’s deputies used their K-9 unit to search the building.
Stanley is being held in the South Central Regional Jail on $25,000 cash only bond.