Regarding your report "Monkton teen told police he took gun to Towson school" (Nov. 5), adolescents have unfortunately been writing similar threatening messages in school restrooms for decades.
It is very easy to make this type of threat in private communications, but there is virtually no likelihood that this adolescent has access to explosives and the knowledge to assemble the necessary components. An armed student is the new threat in schools.
At some point an experienced school administrator needs to make a risk vs. benefit judgment before evacuating a thousand or more staff and students for a message scribbled on a bathroom stall or mirror. It is probably more of a risk to the students in the building to march them down the street to a different building than to remove the writing and continue the normal school day.
Patrick Neary