AURORA | The person who threatened to bomb multiple buildings at the Cherry Creek School District last week has not been identified nor located as of Thursday, according to Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, John Bartmann.
On the morning of Sept. 22, police received a call from a local unidentified news outlet about a possible bomb threat. Someone at the media outlet told police they’d received an email stating that multiple bombs had been placed in three elementary schools and two administration buildings.
Sheriff deputies worked with other local police agencies to search the buildings. District personnel searched the interior of the buildings while the sheriff’s offices’ explosive detection canines searched the exterior. No explosives were found and the threat was determined to be unfounded.
It remains an open investigation, officials said.
In a message delivered to families on Tuesday, Superintendent Chris Smith said that the people making the threats are targeting books about the LGBTQ experience, and using bullying, homophobic tactics in an attempt to troll controversy.
“I will not tolerate threats made to our community or abusive language or insults directed toward our teachers and staff members who genuinely care about our students and work tirelessly every day to inspire them to learn and grow. I will not tolerate harassment or attacks against our LGBTQ+ community. The attacks from last week were driven by hate and have no place in our schools,” Smith said.
Libs of TikTok and CPAN
The threats came a day after Libs of TikTok, which the Anti-Defamation League states is a popular anti-LGBTQ+ twitter account, published a blog post detailing their attempts to contact district leaders about “pornographic” books in elementary school libraries. The books named in the blog post are: “Gender Queer,” “This Book is Gay,” “Flame,” “Me, Earl and the Dying Girl,” “It’s Perfectly Normal,” “Blankets,” and “Fun Home.”
Lauren Snell, district spokesperson, said none of the books are in the district’s elementary school libraries.
“Me, Earl and the Dying Girl” and “It’s Perfectly Normal” are available in middle school libraries while the other books are available in high school libraries, school officials said.
The blog post said that the district blocked their email after they contacted the district multiple times, including when they created a fake email and posed as a concerned parent. The post ends with a call to action to their readers, telling them to contact district leaders asking why they blocked Libs of TikTok.
Smith said the district received hundreds of phone calls, emails and social media messages, most of which came from out of state.
The same day, the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, made a Facebook post questioning the district’s decision to block Libs of TikTok, and included a link to the blog post.
CPAN released a statement saying that no one should be harassed. However, they have continued to tag Libs of TikTok on X, formerly known as Twitter, with trolling posts and comments. The latest post was for a public event CPAN hosted titled “Evidence of Harm in Colorado Schools: Porn in Libraries.”
Lori Gimelshteyn, executive director and co-founder of CPAN, moderated the conversation. At the beginning of the event, she also defined anything sexually explicit as being pornographic.
Sarah, whose username is Hopelesswanderer and said she is a parent in the Cherry Creek School District, was invited to speak at the event. She said was inspired to investigate school library books after seeing a post from Libs of TikTok.
At the beginning of the last school year, she said she bought the book, “Let’s Talk About It,” and said she found the content shocking. She did not explain why. She then expressed her concerns to the board of education.
The Sentinel reported last year that the district reviewed and removed “Let’s Talk About It” from school libraries. The book is an illustrated sex education guide aimed at an adolescent audience and includes information about LGBTQ identity. According to the publisher, the book covers “relationships, friendships, gender, sexuality, anatomy, body image, safe sex, sexting, jealousy, rejection, sex education” and other topics.
It also contains anatomical drawings of genitalia as well as several caricature-like illustrations of people engaging in sexual activity. It includes frank discussions of sex and relationships and topics including sexting, pornography, gender expression and sexual identity, STDs and birth control.
Although it appeared no one had ever checked out the book, district officials said they removed “Let’s Talk About It” because it included content that could be inappropriate for some young people and contained some material about sexting that officials said some worried could promote illegal behavior.
The district also reviewed “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe and “Flamer” by Mike Curato at the time, but they remained on library shelves.
According to Chris Smith, Superintendent of CCSD, CCSD had received, an “anonymous email”, So, how does one send an anonymous email? There is a name and a domain attached. It is easily traceable.
According to this article, an unidentified news outlet received the threat and contacted police. There is no mention of whether it is anonymous, or not.
Either way, an email is traceable unless it is from some foreign server. So why has the sender not been identified? Perhaps it originates from a source not linked to Lib’s of TikTok, or from CPAN. That would be inconvenient for the narrative, I suppose.
Libs of TikTok is not an anti-LGBTQ website. It is a website that posts the absurdities that users of TikTok produce, in their own words. It is the audience that determines how to interpret these absurdities. I am sure there are, as David Letterman used to say, “stupid Pet Tricks” on TikTok. If Libs of TikTok reposted these, should we call them anti-pet? It is nonsense. Libs of TikTok are not responsible for the absurdity of the content.
Despite all of the protestations from Chris Smith and the CCSD about not having these books on the shelves, it is clear from the reporting that they do have these types of books on the shelves and only remove them when some parent catches on; thus, the removal of “Let’s Talk About It”.
It is a game of, “if you find it, we might remove it. If you don’t then we leave it”. Clearly, CCSD removed it because the concerns were well-founded. Why was it there in the first place?
Gender Queer contains images graphic sexual activity. In it, there is a depiction of a child performing oral sex on an adult. This is child porn. The author has stated that her book is not intended for children, yet the CCSD has it on library shelves, for children. Why?
The victims here are children, Libs of TikTok, CPAN, and unsuspecting parents. The perpetrators are libraries and the CCSD.
Shame on this reporter for slanting the story and hiding the actual news. Kristin Oh focused on an email that could have been sent by either a supporter or opponent of pornographic books in school libraries. This wasn’t the actual theme of her article.
The actual story is that Ms. Oh misreported in her last article that there were no pornographic books in Cherry Creek School District “stacks.” We now know, based on testimony at the CPAN meeting, that books with graphics showing oral sex and other pornographic themes are and have been in Cherry Creek School libraries targeted at children.
Ms. Oh owes CPAN and Ms. Gimelshteyn an apology. Ms. Gimelshteyn was correct that graphic porn books are available to 10-year-old children. Parents in the Cherry Creek School District should be concerned about the school grooming their children for sexual relations.
Sentinel, please do better.