Youth charged after allegedly threatening Yellowknife school

Police in Yellowknife have arrested and charged a youth after a city school received unspecified threats.

RCMP say they made the arrest on Monday. In a news release issued on Wednesday, they identified Range Lake North School as the school involved.

An investigation was launched last week, in collaboration with both the school and the YK1 school district.

The youth cannot be identified under Canadian law. They face three charges of uttering threats. Police have not specified the nature or content of those threats.

“The RCMP takes all threats to the safety and security of Canada and Canadians seriously and to determine their credibility, we must fully investigate each and every one of them,” said RCMP spokesperson Marie York-Condon in Wednesday’s news release.

“We are informing the public that we have laid charges in alleged school threats. The safety of the students and public was not at risk due to the quick actions of the school officials and the investigating officers.”

The youth, who is an NWT resident, has been released on condition that they appear at a later date in youth court.

Yellowknife schools receive threats of some variety on a regular basis.

Police investigated a threat against Sir John Franklin High School in October last year, the same school suffered a bomb hoax in 2015, and a Yellowknife teen was charged over fake terrorist threats in 2016.