By Jordan Wilcox
Assistant Publisher
A shelter in place order was issued at South Haven’s Baseline Middle School on Tuesday, September 10th, following unsettling comments made by a substitute teacher.
According to the mother of one of the students in class that day who spoke with News Channel 3, and an eighth grader who spoke with FOX 17, the substitute began the day with uncomfortable discussions about politics and terrorism, which quickly lead into him threatening to “bomb the border,” and deport a Hispanic student back to Mexico.
According to those same sources, he later went on to threaten any students who spoke about his rant, saying he would do unspeakable acts to the girls, and kill the students.
“’I will come to your house and kill you if you snitch.” the eighth grader said to FOX 17. “He starts, like, talking about if we were to go snitch, he would kill us and let our bodies, like, rot for four days and then put us in a metal crate and then bomb the ship it’s on, so we would sink and drown.”
Another parent who spoke with FOX 17, says he even went so far as to tell another he knows where they live, and he’ll blow up their house.
After class let out, one of the students was thankfully able to alert administration about the sub’s unacceptable behavior. They met with him after speaking with some of the other students, and after the conversation, he promptly left the premises.
Shortly after, deputies informed Hopkins Public Schools of a suspicious individual heading towards town, which prompted all three schools – elementary, middle, high – to also go into a short shelter in place.
The shelter in place ended ten minutes later, though, when the substitute was arrested by Allegan County Sheriff’s deputies, at a business in Allegan Township, for what court records reveal is felony malicious destruction of a building.
South Haven Public Schools later sent out a memo to other area districts alerting them of the sub’s incidents there, and it was then that Hopkins Public Schools realized why they went into lockdown.
Both school districts have now permanently banned him from their property, and he’s been removed from EduStaff, the third-party provider both districts use to screen and hire substitutes.
He’s currently facing a domestic violence charge for his actions at the school and is scheduled for arraignment on October 1st. He bonded out on the building destruction.
