TERLINGUA — On October 10, two Terlingua CSD students were arrested after the Brewster County Sheriff’s Office (BSCO) received a tip about a potential bomb threat. Further investigation revealed two students had been using school computers to discuss bombing the campus. Their plans turned out to be a hoax, but they were arrested and taken to the Brewster County Jail in Alpine and have since been released on bond.
The two students — Annica Paige Herrera and Caitlin Ayami Staib — face charges for “false alarm or report.” Because Herrera and Staib are 17 years old, they are considered adults by the Texas criminal system.
False alarm crimes are typically class A misdemeanors, but are enhanced to a felony when the false alarm concerns a school or public utility.
While the students’ motives remain unclear, there have been an unusually high number of violent threats called into Texas schools this year. At the end of September, the Austin American-Statesman reported that at least 25 students across the state had been arrested and charged with false alarm or terroristic threat.
These crimes have been blessedly rare in the Big Bend, but still seem to reflect the trend. In December 2022, a man called 911 to report that he had placed multiple bombs around campus at Presidio High School. Dispatch received a second disturbing call — under the name “Ricardo” — who said that he had killed his parents and planned to shoot anyone who responded to the scene at the school.
PISD Police Chief Joel Nuñez said that a tremendous amount of effort and personnel was put into securing the campus after the threat was received. Luckily, school was out that day and there were only two staff members in the building — the major risk was that students were on their way from another town to play against the Blue Devils.
The Presidio Police Department and Border Patrol personnel also responded. Nuñez recalled that there were a dozen officers in total who helped to secure the scene. “We secured the area, evacuated everyone from the building, and then spread out to search each classroom for any signs of bombs or suspicious activity, but we found nothing,” he said.
Nuñez’s experience mirrored that of the Brewster County Sheriff’s Office in responding to the false threats. The school was evacuated and Dori, an explosive-detecting K9, was deployed to make sure the campus was safe.
While the threat turned out to be a hoax, the experience left law enforcement rattled. “These types of false reports will not be tolerated by Sheriff Dodson,” the BCSO wrote on Facebook. “They interrupt school days and pull Sheriff’s Office resources away from potential actual emergencies.”