Category: School Violence

Thanks to L. from Lost in Lima Ohio, I now have the transcript of Michelle Dohm appearing on MSNBC. For those of you just joining us, Michelle Dohm is a Maryland teacher accused of stalking and threatening some of her own students. The transcript itself can be found here.

She really didn’t say anything of consequence, but I do have to take her and her lawyer to task for two quotes from the transcript.

First, from her lawyer…

MORROW: Well, I think the explanation is probably a lot simpler than it would appear. I think that if you look at the rather juvenile nature of a lot of these notes, it would appear to be someone who is in the 6th-grade range. The fact of the matter is that it was probably something that was intended initially as a practical joke and unfortunately has been blown out of proportion. I think that’s what we may find when all of the dust settles in this case.

I think the odds of the notes being written by a 6th grader are slim to none, and slim just left.

Usually, 6th graders are usually around 12 years old. I really don’t think a 12-year-old would write a threat like “Tick-tock, tick-tock, is it a bomb or is it a clock? You ignored my note on the van. Now I will carry out my plan.” They would sooner write something like “Im gona kil yew”.

More than likely, these notes were written by an adult. Now, remember, some of the notes were traced back to Dohm’s printer. Now, whether or not the notes were written by another teacher or other school employee remains to be seen.

And Ms. Dohm had this to say about herself…

DOHM: In all the years that I’ve been teaching, I’ve been the kind of teacher where a lot of kids like me. Parents like me. I have a lot of friends in the community, people who are really supportive of me, even right now. And I really can’t think of anybody in particular. All I can think is that it’s somebody who—maybe there’s jealousy involved with the boys and with me. I really don’t know.

Not according to the comments I’ve been receiving from people in the Thurmont community. The opinion is from the comments I’ve received is that she’s a very pushy and overprotective parent and these threats are the result of some kind of social ostracizing against her son by members of the little league team.

That’s all I have for now. More details to follow as they become available.

Md. Teacher Denies Threatening Students:

This is a follow-up to the story of Michelle Dohm, the Maryland teacher accused of threatening and stalking some of her students.

According to the article, she appeared on MSNBC last night to defend herself. I checked the MSNBC website but couldn’t find any mention of her. So if anyone saw the program she was on, could you let me know what she had to say because this article is severely lacking in details.

Basically, the article says, “she was framed”. The article doesn’t say by whom, though. Well, she did say that there is no connection to her son not making the school baseball team.

It seems we have means and motive, but again I’d like to hear about more of the evidence, besides some of the threatening notes came from her printer. However, the notes themselves seem too literate to be from your typical teen who usually uses all caps, no caps, and internet shorthand in their actual writings.

Middle School Teacher Arrested On Bomb Threats, Stalking:

I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a teacher threatening to attack a school. A teacher by the name of Michelle Dohm, formerly of Thurmont Middle School in Maryland, has been charged with nine felony counts of threatening to explode a destructive device and two misdemeanor counts of stalking. She could get 100 years and be fined $100K. What did she do?…

Dohm is accused of leaving or delivering threatening notes on at least five occasions from Sept. 28 through Nov. 21. The last note, found in the boy’s bathroom, prompted an evacuation of the school. It read: “Tick-tock, Tick-tock, now you’ll know it’s a bomb and not a clock. At 12 o’clock you’ll know I wasn’t kidding,” Rolle said.

The messages targeted four male students, two of them repeatedly, Rolle said.

In the first incident, on Sept. 28, Dohm is alleged to have given school administrators a note that she told them she got from a parent. It named two school baseball players and claimed they had been bullying the writer’s son, Rolle said. He said the note also suggested searching their lockers for a knife.

Attached to the note was a message made of letters cut from magazines that spelled the words “suffer,” “bound,” “tied” and “die,” Rolle said.

The next day, the boys named in the note reported to the school office that they’d found a knife and bottles of beer in one of their lockers, Rolle said.

A week later, a student’s father found a threatening note on his van: “Play No. 20 and 24 and die,” Rolle said. Those were the uniform numbers of the baseball players mentioned in the earlier note, he said.

On Oct. 17, Rolle said, four students found typed notes on their lockers, reading: “Tick-tock, tick-tock, is it a bomb or is it a clock? You ignored my note on the van. Now I will carry out my plan.” Investigators learned that the notes had been printed from Dohm’s school computer, Rolle said.

On Nov. 1, custodians found folded-and-stapled notes stuck in two school lockers, followed by the discovery the next day of virtually identical notes in two other lockers, Rolle said. He said each of the computer-written notes was titled “Hit list,” and contained the names of at least two students, some teachers and the words, “Boom. Boom. Kill.”

Dohm was removed from the classroom after those notes. In her exit interview with Superintendent Linda D. Burgee, Dohm said that if another note were found, it would prove she wasn’t to blame. The last note was found in the boy’s bathroom a week later, Rolle said.

If all they’re basing this on is the notes came from Dohm’s school computer printer, then that’s pretty flimsy evidence. However, there could be more than they are letting on too. So I will be watching this one with interest.