East High Will Be Back Open Monday Following 'Credible Threat'
DENVER (CBS4) - Denver's East High School will be back open on Monday following what police called a credible threat against the school on Friday.
School security is expected to double check with Denver police just to make sure East High School can open as usual Monday. The early dismissal Friday came as police investigate if the threat was connected to the shooting of a student killed last weekend.
Reysean Abram's Facebook page calls him a young artist in the making, but other pictures of Abram have some thinking he was flashing gang symbols.
"How we're hearing it, I'm hearing it's gang related; not too sure now," Abram's aunt said.
Abram's aunt had been planning a surprise party for his 14th birthday until he was shot and killed while riding his bike late last month in the Montbello neighborhood. Then on Friday East High School, where Abrams was a student, closed early after police learned of a threat against the school.
"This is a serious war that some of these kids have going on," said Terrence Roberts, anti-gang advocate.
Roberts says the decades-old rivalry between Bloods and Crips continues with both gangs represented at East High School.
"This is one of those moments where there are some tensions and it's obvious," Roberts said. "It's been rising, I'd say, within the past week or so."
But Roberts said to believe that Abram was a gang member because of finger posing is unfair.
"There might be a kid who's 15 and they're still a kid and they're not as involved as people think they are," Roberts said. "They may play the part, they may look the part."
Abram is the kind of kid Roberts had in mind when he built basketball courts and inspired the newly opened Anshutz Center in northeast Park Hill. Abram lived in a gang neighborhood.
"There's a lot of peer pressure," Abram's aunt said.
But now with her nephew dead, possibly because of gang violence, she has a message for the young.
"Love yourself, that's where it comes first."
Manual High School was impacted by the early dismissal as security concerns postponed the homecoming dance that had been scheduled for Saturday night.
