APS doubts plot but suspends students

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Once again students are in trouble as word of a possible shoot-'em-up plot rattles an Albuquerque middle school.

For now, however, Albuquerque public schools officials say the threat does not appear to be credible.

This comes in the wake of four reported threats against students and schools since mid September, three of them in Albuquerque and one in Belen .

The latest incident started at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday when a student brought a drawn diagram with areas of the school on it to the principal at Hoover Middle School on Tivoli Avenue NE near Comanche Road and Tramway Boulevard.

The two-sided drawing had what APS officials are calling cryptic messages about guns and money.

There were five names on the paper, but APS suspects six people were involved, all of them minors. Three of them are APS students, one each in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

One of them is the student who brought it to the principal's attention.

"The process is always to interview the students involved, do a threat assessment and then to make sure that police have been to the homes of anyone to make sure there are no weapons," Monica Armenta, APS executive director of communication, told KRQE News 13. "There were no weapons found at the homes of these five individuals."

The three students have denied any involvement but have been suspended.

APS says they have notified parents about the situation and there will be an increased police presence at the school through the end of the week.