Possible pipe bomb discovered at Layton elementary school


3 photos
Save Story

Show 2 more videos

Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

LAYTON — A bomb scare at Mountain View Elementary School on Monday resulted in the evacuation of students and cancellation of classes. Now, police are relying on surveillance footage to track down a suspect.

Monday morning, a maintenance worker was on the roof of the school, 2025 E. 3100 North, when he found what appeared to be a pipe bomb, said Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams. Authorities were notified, but not until the man had already carried the device off the roof.

The school's more than 700 students were evacuated about noon and taken to a church east of the school on 2400 East. Classes were canceled for the rest of the day after the Davis County Sheriff's Office, Layton police and Layton firefighters were called.

"It was, like, crazy because of all the fire trucks coming in and the police, and there were sirens and stuff," said 10-year-old Macie Rose. "You could hear all the wheels stop, and everyone screaming and stuff, but it was crazy loud."

Williams said parents were notified by email and phone messages that automatically went out.


We've had preparation drills, disaster drills, where we came and got our kids before, so I knew exactly what to do.

–Stacie Colby, mother


Macie's mother, Stacie Colby, said she received a voice mail from the district and went to pick up her daughter at the designated location.

"We've had preparation drills, disaster drills, where we came and got our kids before, so I knew exactly what to do," Colby said. "Not until I got over here and saw everything did I panic."

The device was rendered safe in the parking lot.

Colby said she was impressed with the way the school handled the situation.

"It was smooth," she said. "It was exactly how they prepared us before."

Bomb-sniffing dogs from Hill Air Force Base were also sent to the school to conduct a search for any other devices.

The roof appeared to be clear on Friday, and investigators were trying to figure out when it was placed there.

"There was a maintenance worker on the roof on Friday to get a ball that had gotten on the roof from the kids," said Layton police Lt. Shawn Horton. "He didn't see anything out of the ordinary at that time."

Police believe the device was thrown onto the roof, as they found no evidence of anyone accessing the maintenance area to climb to the roof. Police are combing through surveillance footage to identify a possible suspect. No motive has been identified, police said.

The school has been thoroughly swept and is safe, Davis School District said. School is expected to resume as normal Tuesday.

Contributing: Peter Samore, Andrew Wittenberg

Photos

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
Pat Reavy

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast