Students, teachers search for routine even as new threats made

MARYSVILLE — The wait is hard on teachers, too.

Five days after a deadly shooting in the Marysville Pilchuck High School cafeteria, students and teachers are growing antsy to reunite and find some semblance of routine.

At the same time, two police agencies on Tuesday were investigating threats believed to be hoaxes aimed at Marysville schools and athletes.

With classes at Marysville Pilchuck canceled until Monday, 1,200 students have been looking for places to gather and share. Some have been seeking out their teachers, present and past, all the way back to elementary school.

Randy Davis, president of the Marysville Education Association, has been in frequent contact with faculty from Marysville Pilchuck where he spent most of his 32 years in the profession teaching science and coaching.

Teachers are looking forward to Monday, when they will see all their students again, he said.

“We want the activities coming back to be student led,” Davis said. “We want to do what the students are requesting. That was the teachers’ message to me.”

Something as simple as seeing more than a dozen of his students working traffic control for a parent meeting Tuesday night made Randy Brasfield’s day. He’s a Navy ROTC member at Marsyville Pilchuck.

“I was so energized getting to work with the kids again,” he said. “It put zip back in my step.”

Three Marysville Pilchuck students remained hospitalized Tuesday, two in critical condition.

As of Tuesday, victims Andrew Fryberg, 15, and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14, were in critical condition with gunshot wounds to the head. Nate Hatch, 14, who was shot in the jaw, was in satisfactory condition. Andrew and Nate’s families have asked for privacy and shared thanks for the community’s support. Both boys are at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Shaylee is at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.

“Please continue to keep Shaylee in your thoughts and prayers,” the hospital posted in a news release Tuesday.

Zoe Raine Galasso and Gia Soriano, both 14, were killed. A family funeral for Zoe is being set for this weekend.

The shooter, Jaylen Fryberg, 15, took his own life. His funeral arrangements are being finalized on the reservation.

Police on Tuesday shared no additional information from their investigation into the cafeteria shooting. Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary has said the investigation could take months and might never answer the question of why it happened.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Shari Ireton declined to talk about Seattle media reports Tuesday claiming investigators have leaked information about the content of Jaylen Fryberg’s text messages. The reports said that he had sent texts to his parents not long before opening fire.

“Our detectives have said they cannot confirm this information with any certainty,” Ireton said. “It is still too early in the investigation.”

Jaylen Fryberg had no criminal history in Washington state. Both the Tulalip and Marysville police departments on Tuesday said their officers had no previous contacts with him.

On Tuesday, officials were responding to anonymous online threats directed at Tulalip Heritage High School students and at students and sports teams in Marysville, including Marysville Pilchuck.

Marysville Police Chief Rick Smith said he’s assigned an investigator to each of the threats.

“We take every threat seriously,” he said.

Classes at Heritage remained in session, and officers already were on campus when the threat was reported about 10 a.m., Tulalip Police Chief Carlos Echevarria said.

A parent saw a threatening post on Facebook and reported it to Quil Ceda Elementary School, district spokesman Aaron Toso said. Quil Ceda Elementary is next door to Tulalip Heritage High and 10th Street School.

There was increased police visibility at the school Tuesday for students, faculty and parents to feel safe, Toso said.

Tulalip police were working on leads and trying to determine where the threat came from, the chief said. No other similar threats have been reported on tribal lands.

Marysville Pilchuck football coaches also posted on Twitter that they reported inappropriate and threatening messages to local police. Whoever was behind the messages also sent them to Nate Hatch and other shooting victims.

“As we are made aware of threats, we are assigning personnel to investigate,” Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux said Tuesday.

Multiple cases in Snohomish County over the past decade have led to criminal charges for young people who’ve made threats to schools.

Hoaxes and threats after mass-casualty incidents seem to be associated with the intense media coverage, said University of Washington professor Jim Mazza, an expert in adolescent mental health.

There has not been significant research into the topic because so little is known about who makes the threats and why, said Joe Weis, a UW sociologist and professor who studies crime.

He’s never heard of a case where such threats come to fruition, and they can fall between existing criminal laws.

“A hoax is a hoax. It’s not real,” he said.

Marysville police also reminded people to be careful when they are making donations to accounts purporting to be for the victims. Donors should do their research to avoid being duped by “opportunistic individuals,” Lamoureux said.

“We want to be very certain the generosity of our community is not taken advantage of, and just as importantly, we want their donations to make it to the victims and their families.”

Marysville School District Superintendent Becky Berg said plans are still being developed to reopen Marysville Pilchuck on Monday without using the cafeteria where the shootings occurred. Meanwhile, students and others have been building a memorial on the high school’s fence. Some of the messages mourn the loss of the shooter as well as his victims.

There are no plans to remove any of those items, Berg said, adding “I think right now is not a time to blame or to ostracize.”

While a few anonymous Internet trolls have spewed malicious threats, most messages to Marysville schools have been kind, thoughtful and signed by people by from throughout the state and across the country.

Daryn Bundy of Bundy Carpets in Marysville, parent of a Marysville Pilchuck student, wrote in an email: “Our schools are in great hands with you at the helm … great job … so proud of our students, and the staff.”

Claire Kohn, a retired school superintendent from Cambridge, Massachusetts, sent condolences.

“I know there is little or nothing I can do personally, but you should know there are so many of us out there who are wishing we could help in some way, however, small,” Kohn wrote. “The least we can do is offer our thoughts and prayers. If there is more you need, we stand ready to help.”

Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.

Donations, support

Harborview Medical Center in Seattle is accepting messages for victims Nate Hatch and Andrew Fryberg online at ow.ly/DtLml.

Heritage Bank and the Marysville Rotary Club have set up a bank account to support the victims’ families. Donations can be brought to the bank at 1031 State Ave., Marysville.

More info: 360-657-3100

Donations may also be sent in care of the Marysville Rotary Education Foundation at P.O. Box 1875, Marysville, WA., 98270. A committee will be established to handle the money, drawing members from the city, school district and the Rotary.

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain plans to be in Tulalip to celebrate Mass at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the St. Anne Mission, 7231 Totem Beach Road. A special prayer service will follow.