[Updated] School Shooting Threat at Billings West High School

This release from the Billings Police Department, Saturday Dec 10th:

On December 9th, at approximately 9:30 AM, the Billings Police Department dispatch center received a call of an individual with a firearm at West High. Officers were immediately dispatched to the area and the school administration was notified. The school was placed on lockdown and BPD Officers arrived on the scene very quickly and began a search of the school and school grounds. The school had been cleared by 9:39 AM and no suspect was located, and no incident had occurred at the school. Yellowstone County Deputies assisted in the response by responding to other School district 2 schools to make sure all schools had appropriate resources.

The initial investigation indicates the caller used applications with the intention of concealing their identity. The investigation has been turned over to the BPD Investigations unit and will continue to be investigated.

BPD would like the public to know that we take all of these reports seriously and will investigate each incident to the fullest of our capabilities.

***Updated information***

BPD investigators continued to work to identify the threat at West High throughout the day on 12/9/22. Detectives served emergency disclosure requests to several social media platforms. The information obtained by these requests has revealed ties to an account outside of the United States as well as an account outside of Montana. Students assisted in this investigation by providing a TikTok video from outside of Montana, which was investigated as potentially involved.

Multiple schools across the State received the same or similar threat at the same time the West High call was made. Due to the information received during this investigation, at this time it does not appear there is any local threat to West High or any other school in the Billings area.

The BPD has sent the information to Federal Law Enforcement Agencies requesting assistance in continuing the investigation outside of the BPD jurisdiction.

Today, Billings Police Tweeted:

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A threat of a shooting at West High was called in this morning. West High was placed on lockdown, and the caller appears to be from out of state.

Multiple Billings Police Department officers were on scene, and everything is Ok.

As more information is released, this article will be updated.