Note: The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s bomb squad cleared the vehicle at Matanzas High School at 5:20 p.m. Wednesday. No explosives were found. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office is analyzing evidence found in the car.
A pair of ongoing investigations into two suspicious explosive incidents over the last few days led to a student’s car parked at Matanzas High School around noon today, sealing off one of the school’s parking lots, including some 50 cars belonging to students, and requiring the assistance of the St. Johns County Sheriff’s bomb squad to investigate.
The investigation continued late this afternoon, as the car’s interior had yet to be examined, but Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said “there was no threat to Matanzas High School or to any student here.”
The student, whom Superintendent LaShakia Moore described as “an active student on our campus,” was with his mother, school personnel and deputies at Matanzas High School as the sheriff addressed the media outside one of the school’s gates by the football field just after 4 p.m., alongside Moore. (Mike Rinaldi, the Matanzas High School principal, did not appear.)
The student invoked his right not to speak to law enforcement, but was not under arrest, the sheriff said. Staly repeatedly sought to distance the high school from the incident. “This was an incident that came to their property, not a incident that was occurring at Matanzas High School, other than the vehicle that we were looking for and a student was here,” he said.
The distinction wasn’t clear.
“What I’m saying is there’s no threats to Matanzas High School that have come up,” the sheriff said. “The two incidents that we’re investigating were in the L Section, in the S section of Palm Coast, the closest I guess to Matanzas High School is the L Section incident, and it just so happened that information came in today that led us here now.” Deputies responded. While threats have been called in against the school in the past, Staly said, that was not the case today.
“There’s no threat focused on a student here or a faculty member. That’s the distinction,” he said.
Deputies secured a search warrant for the car and called in the St. Johns squad after the Flagler Sheriff’s explosive-detection-dog alerted to the presence of chemicals in the vehicle. That prompted the request to St. Johns’ EOD, or Explosive Ordinance Disposal, unit.
“Now let me clarify that a positive hit doesn’t mean that there was anything active currently in that vehicle,” Staly said. “What it means is that at some point there was something chemical in that vehicle that an explosive detection canine would activate on, would respond to. It could be fireworks, it could be anything else that the canine is trained” to detect. One EOD officer responded, examined the car, then summoned the larger squad.
“The EOD team is currently finalizing a review of the vehicle, and they’re using X-ray equipment that they have to see in it, and then they will physically look in the vehicle,” Staly said. “I believe it will be cleared up in the next hour or so.” He was speaking around 4:15 p.m.
Moore said that in the roughly two hours after the deputies arrived at the school and before dismissal, students inside the school were required to remain in their assigned rooms after lunch–what is referred to as a “hold” situation rather than a lockdown–disrupting the normal school day. Afternoon activities outdoors on campus were cancelled.
“It had an impact on the rest of the day, because we could not operate as normal, but we were able to keep the students in a safe location,” Moore said.
The school implemented a staggered dismissal system, with buses leaving first. Students who chose to remain on campus, waiting for their cars, were allowed to do so in the school auditorium. Moore said even if the parking lot was not cleared until nightfall, students would be allowed to return there and claim their cars.
“We look forward to resuming normal activity tomorrow here at Matanzas High School, as well as all of our Flagler schools,” Moore said. Staly and Moore had necessarily conducted press briefings in the last couple of years to address threats at school. They generally appeared more tense and even grim on some of those occasions. That was not the case today, suggesting that by the time they spoke, they seemed confident that the bomb squad was going through the required motions, checking off boxed to ensure what was almost certain: the car did not pose a danger. (The chatter on social media was that “modified fireworks” were in the car.)
On several occasions, faculty members and other adults were seen driving out of the back parking lot shortly before Moore and Staly spoke, in one case with a student in the car, though the back parking lot was sealed from the front end of the school. There was significant activity at the front parking lot, and a faculty member controlling traffic. But Moore said the school was “minimizing any type of additional individuals coming into our campus” outside of law enforcement, staff and families picking up students.
Staly said he could not yet say whether the car would be impounded. That would depend on what was found inside, once the squad made entry.
The FBI and the ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) were notified, but Staly said not to read too much into that: notification is automatic when the St. Johns bomb squad is called in.
“The school security team did a phenomenal job,” Staly said. “Just for myself to get back to where I needed to go, I went through two school security checkpoints. They don’t recognize my unmarked car.” He added: “You have to also look at the environment today. It’s a much higher risk environment, and that’s why we work so close together with the school district to ensure kids are safe. And that’s why we take it serious if we get information that a vehicle here that might have something, an explosive or IED type, we’re going to handle that the way it needs to be handled, so that we make sure that everybody is safe.”
Staly did not give details about the two ongoing explosives investigations, and said he was reluctant to give a timeline as to when the investigations might conclude. His detectives had been working them through the holidays.
Way to much hipe says
This media needy Sheriff is destroying our community. He is the one who elevates these incidents way more then they need to be so he can stand in front of cameras. Nearly every single month it seems like Matanzas High is in “lock down” or “hold status” for the sheriff’s office. Its insane and causing severe stress to our kids.
Skibum says
It is law enforcement’s job to respond to incidents. When public safety is at stake, especially at a school when hundreds of students and teachers could be in potential danger due to a possible explosive device, that is NOT the time to take chances or to minimize the situation.
Just as when a bomb threat is called in to a school, knowing it is probably a false alarm and there is no real threat to anyone, law enforcement and school personnel do not take a chance even if it appears 99% certain the threat is fake, a % chance could get many people killed!
If it were YOU making the call about what to do, and it was YOUR ass on the line to make appropriate, informed public safety decisions, I’m quite sure that you would be looking at a situation like this in a whole different light. And if not, then you would have no business at all opening your mouth. It is very easy after the fact when all is said and done and nothing dangerous was found, to sit in the comfort of your house, reading about this incident on a news site, talking BS about how other professionals who actually KNOW what they are doing should have done it.
Well, armchair “expert”, your opinion and two cents are not even worth the time it took you to write such nonsense, because you have no idea what you are talking about! If YOUR child was there at Matanzas and everyone including law enforcement took this incident lightly, didn’t take precautions and something catastrophic occurred where students were injured, or worse, many parents, including you I bet would be yelling your heads off wanting to know why in the world didn’t they see this coming and take precautions and evacuate students and teachers away from danger.
This is the classis… damned if they do, damned if they don’t. I suggest YOU stick to what you know, and let the law enforcement professionals, not armchair BS “experts”, do their jobs the best way they know from their extensive training and experience. I trust THEIR judgment more than I do yours, and the schools do too.
Hal says
Just maybe…. have you considered it might be because teenagers are running amok with little to no supervision, social media nonsense pranks, and a lack of respect and responsibility ??
elroy says
yes, I can see. We’re doing great as a society. Palm Coast is nothing about a melting pot of a lot of rejects problem people families domestic coming from other parts of the country. The family unit is God the family prayer is probably going on. I wanted to move to Montana or Wyoming but my wife was against it. Maybe now she’ll change this city is turning into a shit hole.
Kennan says
Shithole?
Wow! A little over the wouldn’t ya say?
Montana? Wyoming?
What do you suppose those states have in common? Beautiful states, but what is the major difference between them and this so called “shithole” Palm Coast? Don’t lie Elroy.
Mike says
These bomb squad nuts were in Bunnell on Christmas Eve investigating a homeless man’s knapsack in the woods.
And the ATF now does health inspections of food-serving establishment in Florida.
Taxpayer says
If there was no threat to the school why was the bomb squad called there? Am I missing something?
Skibum says
What you’re missing is the information law enforcement had at the time when they responded. What you’re missing is what they found that prompted the request to bring the bomb squad to the scene. What you’re missing is all of the training and experience law enforcement personnel go through dealing with suspicious circumstances like this. What you’re missing is the cooperation that the school district has with the sheriff’s office, leaving it to the experts to decide the best course of action for the school staff to take to keep everyone safe, not knowing exactly what it is in the vehicle until the bomb squad gets to the scene to take a closer look.
Finally, what you’re missing is relief and gratitude for the men and women who put themselves in dangerous situations to protect the public, rather than questioning their motives and procedures afterward like a two bit armchair quarterback. Be thankful the situation resolved itself without anyone being hurt, because in many other similar incidents in the past the result was deadly!
JimboXYZ says
Sounds like a fire drill for maybe fireworks that we all know is against ordinances, yet somehow are deployed & lit for 4th of July, & New Year;s Eve. Those are the 2 times of the year that as a homeowner I’m most concerned for the potential for fires. June & July, could be a dry month as would be a late December & January for drought conditions. And let’s face it, listen to the Fire Department’s channel for calls, Fires for fireworks & Christmas lights for this time of the year are high frequency. Since Palm Coast & Flagler has grown, the frequency of automobile wrecks (with injuries) is also a higher frequency event for a dispatched ambulance that the fire department provides for a service thru-out the county. I’ve been finding remnants of fireworks in the yard, up & down the street. So that much has been going on. Sometime the debris ends up on the roof too. That’s always a potential for fires with the idiot America that does that. And then there are those that shoot their guns on holidays.
celia says
Fireworks should be made illegal to sale or own. Specially while in school grounds. I can see ill intentions of this student and his way to go around the law by claiming his fifth amendment…what did he have to hide? With all the inconvenience and cost caused to the whole school and people on it!. Leniency could just promote copy cats. The reporter (FLive) questioning Sheriff Staly regarding details is totally justified. Anything needed and done to prevent and not have to cure these incidents should be appreciated. Myself stopped loud and dangerously flying fireworks being light by an irresponsible neighbor teens next to ADA and elderly adjacent homes by shining my high lumen flash light on them and resolved it short of calling the sheriff. ADA, PSTD, elderly, babies residents and pets should not have to endure this unlawful practice by irresponsible individuals.
Add to the budget says
Maybe Slick Rick keeps calling in the bomb squad to “justify” wanting his own Flagler County bomb squad to spend his overi inflated budget on more useless toys to park next to his army tank ?
FlaglerLive says
Sheriff Staly was asked specifically on Wednesday about a squad for Flagler County. He categorically rejected the idea, saying it’s not worth the cost in relation to the number of incidents when it would be needed, so as long as the mutual-aid agreement exists with St. Johns, there’s no need for one here.
Mike P says
Were there search warrants requested to the home(s) of the juvenal delinquent(s) suspected here? If the dog had a “positive hit” ans Staley said that “at some point there was something chemical in that vehicle that an explosive detection canine would activate on, would respond to” what about at the house where the parents, obviously don’t have a clew on what their children are doing. Lots of questions and very few answers so far.