A fake text and a Snapchat: Lafayette hit with a double hoax

Fayette County school police are investigating after Lexington’s Lafayette High School encountered two hoax threats on Thursday.

Lafayette Principal Bryne Jacobs said first students received a fake text message that was presenting as a WLEX-TV 18 push notification saying that schools had been canceled Friday due to bomb threats.

Almost simultaneously as school was about to dismiss for the day, Jacobs said, some students brought to the administration’s attention a Snapchat message that said “Yette Blowing Up.” Yette is a nickname for Lafayette.

It was “clearly a hoax,” said Jacobs. He sent parents a letter Thursday saying there was no credence to the threat and letting them know there would be extra police patrols at the school on Friday.

Fayette District spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said Friday afternoon that the “Fayette County Public Schools Police Department is still actively investigating the incident, but we are confident that this is not a credible threat. “

She said attendance at district schools on Friday was “within what we would expect for this time of year given the wintry weather and the upcoming Thanksgiving break.”

Jacobs said additional district school police resources determined the Snapchat address was from outside Fayette County.

Fayette school district officials also posted a message on its Facebook page Thursday that emphasized what appeared to have come from WLEX-TV 18 was a hoax.

“Please help us to remind our students that situations like this are extremely serious,” Jacobs wrote in his letter to families. “While some may think this is a joke, it is important that our students understand that making threats against a school is a felony under state law. Adults face punishment of up to five years in prison.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2018 at 2:13 PM.