Student admits lying about attack
Girl may face federal charges for fabricating story, officials say

By Natasha Kaye Johnson
and Zsombor PeterStaff Writers

GANADO — The female student whose report of being attacked at Ganado High School resulted in a lockdown has now confessed that she had lied about the situation.

"The student confessed that it was a hoax," said Gordon Toadlena, criminal investigations supervisor for the Navajo Nation.

The student admitted to tribal and federal authorities on Thursday morning that she had made up the story; however, officials would not release her motives as to why she fabricated the incident.

Around 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, the Ganado Unified School District called for the lockdown of the school. The lockdown was enforced based on the fact that a student reported that six people had threatened her in the bathroom with weapons, including a gun and two knives. The student also described in detail the intruders. Based on the severity of the alleged threat, the school determined that there was a clear and present danger, and immediately contacted the authorities to assist with search procedures.

However, after conducting searches on both students and their school bags, along with a thorough search of the school Wednesday evening, law enforcement officials came up empty-handed.

The evening of the search, authorities became suspicious of the students report, especially since she claimed that the incident happened at 11:30 a.m., but did not report it to the school faculty until 3 in the afternoon. Authorities also said that her story was inconsistent.

Toadlena did not know whether the student was under custody, and said the FBI talked to the U.S. Attorney's Office via phone last night. He believes that they're going to charge her federally for fabricating the story.

Toadlena said it will be up to the U.S. Attorney's Office to make that determination; however, FBI agents are saying that it is up to the tribe to press charges.

"If it is found and believed that the individual who initially reported that there was a student or students with weapons on campus specifically just made up the story, if there is evidence of that comment, then they could face tribal charges; however, as of right now, there is nothing on the federal side that we will be pursuing against anyone in this matter," said Deborah McCarley, special agent for the FBI in Phoenix.

The Arizona Attorney General's Office in Phoenix does not plan on intervening in the situation since it is not their issue.

Apache County Attorney, Chris Candelaria, said that his office has not received any official information regarding the situation, but said that in a situation like this, there are two laws that could address the situation.

The first is a fake alarm statue, which addresses cases in which an individual lies about public emergencies. The second is a law regarding interfering with the orderly conduct of an educational facility.

According to Candelaria, the female individual could possibly be charged with either law, if the authorities choose to do so.

"If the students are any of the victims, its up to the tribal or federal government jurisdiction," said Candelaria. "It's first up to the feds; if it's not up to the feds, the tribe can pursue it on their own."

The reason for the existence of the first law is to safeguard people from depleting and taking away resources from other legitimate calls. The second is to prevent individuals from infringing on an individual's right to an education.

"There are so many resources responding to the false alarm, the legislature got so mad, they said, 'You did this, you have to pay.' "

If charges were pressed, a dollar figure could be determined as to how much money was depleted because of the false allegation.

"All of that could be reduced (to) dollar amounts," said Candelaria.

However, Candelaria said that its very rare for the laws to be mentioned and in the 20 years that he's been a lawyer, has only seen cases like this be prosecuted three or four times.

Misinformation given to press
Perhaps most upsetting for Deborah Dennison-Jackson, Ganado school superintendent, and other school officials, was the leakage of falsified information given to the press, especially since there was never a call that there was a hostage situation or standoff.

"Why was that information given to the Associated Press?" she asked. "Nobody talked to me."

The incident prompted inquiries from national and international news organizations such as CNN and was reported in newspapers as far away as China.

Dennison-Jackson said she questioned Chief Benally about releasing information to the Associated Press, but said that he denied doing so. Benally could not be reached as of press time on Thursday evening.

Dennison-Jackson said she was also angry about the President's Office staff being on campus.

"Where did this information come from that it was a hold up? A hostage situation?" said Dennison-Jackson. "That's the part that just gets me most angry."

Because of the misinformation that was released to the Associated Press by public safety officials, Dennison-Jackson said she plans on submitting an official complaint into the Division of Public Safety.

Concerned parents
Because students were not cleared from the school until after 8:30 p.m., school board officials declared a two-hour delay for students on Thursday; however, after being swarmed with phone calls from concerned parents on Thursday morning, officials decided to call school off and hold a community meeting.

Thursday afternoon, about 90 parents, students, faculty, and staff met at the Ganado Field House to voice concerns. Some voiced concerns about how the situation was handled, especially since parents were alarmed when older children did not return home.

Some felt strongly that the school was not prepared and shunned officials for calling the incident a "wake-up call."

"Saying that this is a wake-up call, that's wrong," said Cindy Tsosie, a community member. "It appears these signs have been existence for several years now."

"No matter how much policy you put in place to safeguard your children, they get into mischief," said Dennison-Jackson, as she addressed the crowd.

Most people felt the situation was handled to the best of the schools ability and were primarily concerned about getting counseling services for the students.

In light of the situation, psychologists will be present on campus Friday for students.