Police seek public’s help, offer cash reward, in series of bomb threats at McGann-Mercy High School

Riverhead Police detectives and Suffolk County Crime Stoppers are asking for the public’s help with finding the person or people responsible for the bomb threats at Bishop McGann-Mercy and Riverhead high schools last month. Police are offering a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Someone reported bomb threats at the Catholic diocesan junior-senior high school on Ostrander Avenue on Jan. 14, 15 and 30. On Jan. 15, after McGann-Mercy students had been evacuated to Riverhead High School and were assembled in the public school’s auditorium while police searched the parochial school, a second bomb threat was called in to Riverhead High School, forcing the evacuation of those premises.

Last Friday, Jan. 30, another bomb threat was made to McGann-Mercy, as students there were taking Regents exams. Students were evacuated and test papers secured, a school spokesperson said. Officers first searched the junior high building and once it was cleared, all students were taken into the junior high where they were given back their tests. A “variance report” will be filed with the State Education Department “indicating the unique circumstance of the test,” the school said in a statement.

Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS or the Riverhead Police Department at 727-4500 extension 332 or extension 327. All calls will be kept confidential.

Someone who falsely reports a bomb on school grounds when the school is occupied or likely to be occupied may be prosecuted for falsely reporting an incident in the first degree, which is a class D felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison under N.Y. Penal Law.

Top photo: McGann-Mercy students huddled on the school’s athletic field following the first bomb threat called in to the school on Jan. 14. Photo: Peter Blasl