Bomb Threat Called into Mason High School (Update: All Clear)

By Stephen Siegel
Falls Church Times Staff
March 4, 2016

A bomb threat was called into George Mason High School Friday morning, causing authorities to evacuate the school and investigate with police and bomb-sniffing dogs.

Students and staff were safely moved to the nearby Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School gymnasium within minutes after the threat was called in. Officials say the threat was an automated phone call, and that identical such calls also were sent to several other area high schools, including McLean, Fairfax’s Falls Church High School, Herndon High, Stone Bridge, and Potomac High.

The unlikelihood of all those schools having a bomb made it more likely that the threat was a hoax, but officials couldn’t be sure, so they moved everyone out of the school as a precaution. Mason students were served lunch at Henderson, and they apparently were still at the middle school as this story was being written.

Officials asked parents not to come pick up their children, because the entire campus was closed while police, with the help of Arlington-based K-9 units, investigated. Classes for Henderson students are continuing as scheduled. No threats were called in there.

Afternoon bus service from Jessie Thackrey Preschool, which is not nearby, are being delayed because most of the buses are stuck in the currently-closed lot on the Mason-Henderson campus.

Update, March 4, 5:28 pm: Police issued an all clear at approximately 2:30 pm, and students were released from the Henderson gym back to Mason. Dismissal from the high school was held at the normal time.