{"id":44671,"date":"2021-09-14T23:53:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T05:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bomb-threat-at-two-montezuma-cortez-schools-police-search-for-suspect\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:20:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:20:35","slug":"bomb-threat-at-two-montezuma-cortez-schools-police-search-for-suspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bomb-threat-at-two-montezuma-cortez-schools-police-search-for-suspect\/","title":{"rendered":"Bomb threat at two Montezuma-Cortez schools; police search for suspect"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cortez
Cortez school board members declared a critical teacher shortage, which is affecting schools in the district, including Montezuma-Cortez High School.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Cortez Police Department is searching for a phone caller who threatened officers Monday night and stated that he had planted explosives in Montezuma-Cortez middle and high schools.<\/p>\n

Police identified the suspect as a man from Utah.<\/p>\n

The suspect called the Cortez Police Department Monday night, and initially threatened to kill all the city\u2019s officers and their families.<\/p>\n

According to a recording of the call played for The Journal<\/em>, the man said he was equipped with assault rifles and explosives.<\/p>\n

When dispatch asked where the items were located, the man said they were in about 20 locations, with three each at Montezuma-Cortez Middle School and Montezuma-Cortez High School.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not trying to threaten schools \u2014 he\u2019s trying to threaten police,\u201d said Andy Brock, assistant chief of police.<\/p>\n

Officers did not find any physical material in the schools that would be alarming in the schools, Brock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything he talked about we looked into, and there was nothing there,\u201d Brock said. \u201cIt was a pretty narrow reel from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suspect made two other similar phone calls \u2013 one in Shiprock and one in Farmington \u2013 Brock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would imagine he\u2019s not going to stay a free person for a long time,\u201d Brock said.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 notified parents of the threat by email Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Monday, September 13th, the district received a bomb threat. All schools have been cleared and everything is safe and secure,\u201d said a copy of the email obtained by The Journal. <\/em><\/p>\n

Superintendent Risha VanderWey issued a news release Tuesday afternoon, saying that a threat occurred at the high school after school hours and that police and the principal deemed the buildings safe.<\/p>\n

She said the district was following safety protocols and procedures.<\/p>\n

The high school\u2019s annual \u201cPeace Fuzz\u201d game took place in the main gym, but the event had already ended by the time the threat was issued, she told The Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are opportunities to learn,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A parent in the district contacted The Journal<\/em> with concern that the initial message from the district did not specify which school or schools might have been affected, and that it came later than she liked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just really frustrating,\u201d she said. \u201cI mean, I know everybody\u2019s trying to do the best they can with the kids, but not keeping the parents contacted near instantly is a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Utah man threatened Cortez police and said he hid bombs at Montezuma-Cortez middle and high schools <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,167,36,216,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86178,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44671\/revisions\/86178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44671"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}