Inciting fear in an East Lansing school could land someone behind bars if the City Council amends laws for conduct on school grounds.
Students could face up to 90 days in jail for intentionally inciting fear, a misdemeanor offense.
The proposed ordinance, discussed at Tuesday's City Council meeting, would apply to a person who intentionally causes others to fear for their safety and the safety of others by making violent threats, having or creating plans for an attack on a school, publishing attack intentions electronically or supporting the actions or methods of a previous school shooting.
The City Council sent the ordinance to the East Lansing School Board and Human Relations Commission for review.
The ordinance comes in the wake of the Virginia Tech University shootings, where 32 students and faculty were killed. The city is drafting the ordinance as a way to deal with similar threats, said Tom Yeadon, East Lansing's assistant city attorney.
"It was designed as a follow-up for the horrific events that seem to happen every couple of years now," he said. "The problem is that people make these threats and officials don't know whether to take them seriously or if they're just talking the talk. They don't want to ignore the threats, but there's not a lot of tools available to police to take them more seriously."
The ordinance was written at the request of East Lansing police Sgt. Patricia Nowak, who supervises school officers for the department.
After a May 15 meeting of county law enforcement agencies, including the Lansing Police Department and the Michigan State Police, the decision was made to create local ordinances that deal with threats made on school grounds, Nowak said.
The proposed ordinance would make it easier to prosecute people who cause fear on school grounds.
There isn't any law on the books that specifically deals with these types of issues, a June 12 memo from Yeadon to East Lansing City Council stated.
"If it's so important, it seems like a 90-day misdemeanor is a slap on the wrist," Councilmember Kevin Beard said.
The ordinance will help East Lansing deal with any issues that arise, Nowak said.
"I hope it will be an instrumental tool that will help and not harm," she said. "We are in a prevention, proactive mode rather than a prosecution mode."
However, two of the ordinance's provisions could be seen as a threat to free speech.
"It is a concern," said Kevin Saunders, an MSU law professor and First Amendment issues expert. "If after one of the shootings happened and someone said, 'I understand why he did it,' that could be taken as a violation."
