STANFORD — A student at Lincoln County High School was taken into custody Monday night for making what police described as credible threats against the school and other students.

The Stanford Police Department said they learned about the threats by the student around 8 p.m. Monday when they were contacted by LCHS administrators of a possible threat being posted on social media.

“It was actually brought to our attention,” Lincoln County High School Principal Michael Godbey said. “Someone sent a picture of the post to us and we immediately notified law enforcement to let them know that that had been posted on social media. At that point, we turned it over to them.”

When the Stanford Police got the call, they wasted little time in handling the situation.

“Upon investigation, it was determined that a juvenile student posted a photograph and caption on social media that was perceived as a threat,” Stanford Chief of Police Zach Middleton said. “At approximately 10 p.m., a search warrant was conducted and a juvenile was taken into custody.”

Middleton said the student, who was pictured holding a weapon in the post, was charged with Terroristic Threatening 2nd Degree.

Godbey said he was extremely pleased with the swift response of the local police.

“It was all very quick,” he said. “We were all in contact last night until about 11 – 11: 30 or so. It was all taken care of pretty quick and they were able to take care of everything.”

Middleton said he and the Stanford department were simply thinking of the “safety of our children.”

“Any threat must be taken seriously as the safety of our children is of the highest importance,” Middleton said. “This situation was dealt with accordingly and under control in a short period of time. We are confident at this time, that there is no need for alarm. There is no longer any threat pertaining to this incident.”

When asked about any added police presence at LCHS Tuesday, Middleton confirmed saying, “We continued presence in the schools today as we always do but, yes, there is some extra presence.”

For the student population at LCHS and the faculty and staff, Tuesday was basically the same as any other school day.

“No one really mentioned it today at school, none of the students,” said Godbey. “There was not any kind of buzz going on. Typically, when something like that happens, there’s a buzz among students and you’ll notice maybe some issues with attendance. But everything was just business as usual here today. It was just very calm.”

Because the incident had been taken care of Monday night, Godbey said the decision was made not to send out an all-call to parents concerning the threat.

“We chose not to create any undo panic or alarm, so we did not send anything out to anyone,” he said. “At that point, since it was taken care of so quickly and so swiftly, we decided best practice not to send out an all-call, that that might alarm folks. We were confident with the way that it was handled last night that everything here was safe and we were good-to-go this morning.”

Godbey said sometimes that’s a difficult call to make, whether to issue an all-call or not, but the situation happening away from school prompted the decision.

“Had it been something that had happened here at school, then definitely there would have been an all-call to go out and we would have definitely notified parents,” Godbey said. “Since the incident actually didn’t happen at school and there wasn’t any weapon at school, we just chose not to do that.”