Suspicious calls to 2 Pembroke Pines schools spark lockdown and investigations
Suspicious phone calls to two Pembroke Pines schools led to a temporary campus lockdown and investigation while officers scoped out the grounds, according to police.
Officers responded to Pembroke Pines Charter High/Academic Village around 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 11, after a staff member received “a suspicious phone call,” the Pembroke Pines Police Department said in an Instagram post.
Though no “active safety threats” were found on campus, the agency added, a precautionary lockdown was implemented and students who had left campus were redirected to the school’s football field while investigators conducted a search.
After surveying the campus, police found no threat and lifted the lockdown around noon, with classes resuming shortly after. An investigation into the suspicious phone call was ongoing, PPPD said.
Less than 20 minutes later, police shared via Instagram that a second suspicious call made to Somerset Academy South Campus — nearly 5 miles away from PPCH Academic Village — was being investigated.
No “active threats or concerns” were found there either, though PPPD wrote that it placed the school on “Code Secure” while officers investigated the call, adding it “may be related to an earlier suspicious call that was made to Academic Village.”
Police lifted the warning around 12:30 p.m., noting the campus “remains safe and secure” and that the phone call — its origin still under investigation — was unfounded.
“We do not have anything additional to add at this time, as our investigation remains ongoing,” PPPD spokesperson Amanda Conwell told the Pembroke Pines News on Feb. 11.
Both calls follow a Feb. 4 bomb threat involving Somerset Academy North Campus that officers were tipped off to via PPPD’s non-emergency line.
The threat was phoned in around 3 p.m., after school dismissal, and officers evacuated any remaining persons on campus.
They found no “concerning devices or items” and deemed the grounds “safe and secure” hours later, adding that the “initial call was unfounded and may be related to a hoax.”
