WARSAW — Warsaw Community Schools issued a statement thanking the Warsaw Police, Indiana State Police and the Kosciusko County Prosecutor’s Office “for their diligence in investigating and prosecuting the party responsible for the threats made against the high school on Sept. 18 and 27.”

Mark A. Schultz, 46, Silver Lake, made bomb threat calls directly to Warsaw Community High School in an attempt to commit robbery at Check Into Cash. He is charged with two counts of attempted robbery; two counts of false informing and two counts of intimidation.

At the time of the threats, Warsaw administration, faculty, staff and students followed their training and procedures to ensure that no viable threat existed. Local authorities also responded quickly and efficiently to sweep the high school grounds, ensuring no threat existed. As a result of the combined efforts, both situations were handled with little disruption to the school day. The events also did not create a mass panic in the schools or community, which had been the primary goal of the person responsible for making the threats, the news release said.

Warsaw Community School administrators and school resource officers are trained and certified on a yearly basis by Indiana’s School Safety Academy. During yearly trainings, WCS personnel learn from experts from around the nation who best practice in school safety procedures, threat assessments and protocol. WCS would like to thank local authorities for their continued efforts to keep the schools and community safe.

“Once they apprehended the person responsible, they learned the whole sole goal of the threats was to cause a panic, with all the law enforcement resources going to the school so a robbery could take place,” said Dani Barkey, WCS communications and accountability officer. “Because we responded the way we were supposed to, that just didn’t happen. We often have parents who question how much we tell them about an event, like what exactly happened. We have engaged in school safety training for many, many years now. And when we go to these events, we learn from national school safety situations what to do and what not to do, such as during bomb threats. They find that if you release that information, you often get copy cats. And if you have copy cats, it’s hard to decipher who’s doing what. The person was not affiliated with our school corporation in any way.”