Noble High student arrested in bomb threat

NORTH BERWICK, Maine - A Noble High student from Berwick has been arrested in Wednesday's bomb scare at the high school.

The 17-year-old was not identified as he is considered a juvenile under Maine law.

North Berwick Police Chief Stephen Peasley said another and perhaps even more suspects could be arrested in the near future. He said the teen arrested today was not the administrator of the Twitter feed on which the bomb threat was posted and later seen by several students.

Peasley said the teenager was charged with Class C felony terrorizing and later released to the custody of his parents. Peasley said he was not sure what grade the student was in.

The social media message threatening to bomb the school was posted Tuesday night and brought to the attention of high school personnel on Wednesday morning forcing the shutdown and cancellation of classes.

High schoolers were shuttled to Noble Middle School and later released to parents.

Meanwhile, the Maine Computer Crimes Task Force has furnished police with the IP address of the computer on which the post was uploaded, which tells lawmen where the physical computer that posted the tweet is located.

MSAD 60 Superintendent Steven Connolly on Thursday announced on the school website home page that the Tweet that sounded the threat "also said children and wives needed to be hidden, and closed with vulgar language and racial epithets."

He also said he wanted to thank "numerous students for taking the bold step of sharing access to that post" and reported that the perpetrators have been identified.

Peasley said the investigation has taken a lot of police department resources, including overtime.

He said he intends to press officials to try to recoup from the suspects some of the costs of the mammoth investigation being waged by state, Berwick and North Berwick Police.

If a suspect is found guilty, they face up to five years in prison.