By FRANCISCO E. JIMENEZ
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com
Alexandria E. Gonzales
San Benito police reported Friday that a mobile number used to text a bomb threat at Rio Hondo High School has been linked to the highly-controversial teenage phone harassment case.
Assistant Operations Chief Michael Galvan of the San Benito Police Department said that the bomb threat, sent via text message on Wednesday, indicated that a bomb would be at the Rio Hondo High School gym on Thursday, June 13. Although Rio Hondo ISD officials have remained tightlipped on the matter, summer school students attending RHHS reported Thursday that no explosive devices were found.
Galvan, meanwhile, said that the mobile number used to send the bomb threat was identified in the aforementioned phone harassment case, which lead to the June 6 arrest of Alexandria E. Gonzales, the 17-year-old Rio Hondo High School student accused of threatening to kill a fellow classmate and eat the victim’s organs. The family of the victim alleges that such threats came in the form of nearly 2,000 text messages sent in a three-week span.
According to Galvan, the number in question has also been linked to a 2012 RHHS bomb threat.
“In their own report—the Rio Hondo school—they’re actually saying that this is the same number from last year,” Galvan said of the 2012 case. “They’re trying to confirm who that number actually belongs to and if it is going to be connected to that girl (Gonzales). More than likely it is because it has the same patterns, but that’s still being investigated.”
When asked about the incident, Rio Hondo ISD Police Chief Rick Rodriguez deferred comment to Superintendent Anneliese McMinn, who was scheduled to retire this month and could not be reached as of presstime Friday.
Weldon Matlock, Chief of Police for the City of Rio Hondo Police Department, said he was not made aware of Thursday’s bomb threat nor has he been informed of similar incidents in the past. “From my understanding, we haven’t had any contact with that,” Matlock said.
The mother of the victim in the Gonzales case submitted a screenshot (a snapshot taken of an image from a mobile device) to the San Benito News, which shows in four texts the following messages: “Bomb tomorrow…In gym…(The victim) is going to burn…(The victim) will die.” These messages were sent June 12 to the cell phone used by the mother of the victim in the Gonzales case, who said on Friday that her daughter happens to be attending summer school at RHHS.
Gonzales remains free on $5,000 bond – $2,500 per count of phone harassment – set by Municipal Court Judge Benjamin Yudesis.
2 comments
Hey, relax. It’s been revealed the NSA is listening to and logging everybody’s phone calls, so no one has to jump to conclusions. We live in America so it’s still guilty until proven innocent right? The burden of proof is on the accused… No due process, yet still land of the free and whatnot.
But let me get this straight.. So the girl was arrested and still made ANOTHER threat afterwards? This doesn’t seem very likely… Even the dumbest criminals wouldn’t be so dumb as to do this…
No, my guess is, someone is spinning a yarn. It doesn’t take a genius to know nearly 2,000 is an awful lot of texts in a three week period… That’s an average of about a hundred texts a day everyday for 21 days straight.
Anyway, I hear the FBI is on the case… So we should know something more soon.
Wonder if this will get deleted like my last comment.
she looks stupid the should also charge the parents of this girl.