MADISON TOWNSHIP — An unsubstantiated threat Election Day morning halted voting at Madison Middle School, resulting in the lock-down of the school for almost 90 minutes.
Madison voters were cleared out of the school, and the school was placed into lock-down mode after authorities were alerted to a threat at the school around 9:30 a.m. Madison fire and safety forces, along with the Geauga County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Matsik and his bomb sniffing dog, searched the entire building but found nothing during their search.
Madison Township Police Chief Len DelCalzo said the threat was similar to those received at Madison High School, Riverside High School in Painesville and at some Ashtabula schools during recent weeks.
While the school was placed in lock-down, DelCalzo said some things were done differently since the last threat, including keeping the lights on to keep students from having to sit in the dark and the use of a bomb-sniffing dog.
“We didn’t believe this threat was any more or any less credible than the one at the high school, but I made the decision to bring in the dog because it was available at this time.” DelCalzo said.
Since the last threat received Feb. 22 at Madison High School, DelCalzo said school officials are taking a lot of heat recently for their decision to put the school into lock-down mode rather than evacuate students.
“You treat each of these situations on the information that you have.” DelCalzo said, “The determination is made by the school officials, and I agree with them. If I had thought for a moment that there was a need for an evacuation, I would have been the first one to say so.”
The entire area was searched and cleared and resumed normal operations at about 10:50 am. No further information was available Tuesday afternoon because of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Lake County Elections Board Director Janet Clair said she was summoned to Madison Middle School Tuesday morning after the threat was called in, and voters were cleared out of the school while it was placed in lock-down.
Clair says while the polling location was shut down, her office kept a list of people who showed up, hoping to vote. All 14 agreed to return later.
The polls reopened at 10:55 a.m.
Also in Lake County, a power failure left a North Perry polling place in the dark for about five minutes Tuesday morning, but Clair says voting never stopped.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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