Tehachapi News

Two school district Trustees receive disturbing messages

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Two Tehachapi Unified School District Trustees received messages in the mail that apparently were meant to frighten the recipients.

The messages may be connected to a divisive issue that has triggered heated public response.

Board President Mary Graham and Trustee Holly Hart both received messages.

Graham said her husband collected the mail March 15 from their Bear Valley Springs mailbox and found a manila envelope containing sunglasses whose frame was twisted, with the lenses broken out.

“They were glasses that I might wear,” Graham said.

“My husband opened it and he was very upset,” said Graham, who called the Bear Valley Police Department immediately to make a report.

“On the return address spot was a giant red ‘T’,” Graham said.

The glasses apparently were newly purchased and still had tags attached, but not the store tag, Graham said. They were the same brand she wears, her husband Ben said.

“There were enough stamps on it to mail it but I did not see a cancellation,” she said.

The address label appeared to have been printed from a computer, cut and pasted on the envelope.

Police handling case
The envelope apparently was hand-delivered and not sent through the U.S. Postal Service, said Sgt. David Watts of the Bear Valley Police Department. The Bear Valley mailboxes are in clusters around the gated community.

The police department took possession of the envelope for safekeeping.

Watts declined to discuss the contents or what was written on the envelope.

“Sometimes threats are inferred, as they can be perceived in the eyes of the beholder. What was written on the correspondence was not coincidental,” Watts said.

“It was not unreasonable for the recipient to think there was a message behind it,” he said. “The message was aggressive and possibly threatening.”

Watts said the police department is keeping an eye on the situation.

“I don't know where this will go,” he said. “Obviously it's a passionate topic in the community.

“I hope cooler heads will prevail. I wish people would find other ways to express their discontent.”

Obscene letter
Hart received a letter March 27 that is similar in tone and language to the disturbing e-mails that were sent March 12, 2008, to her and others, including Trustees and city officials.

The letter was sent to Hart through the U.S. Postal Service by way of school district headquarters at 400 S. Snyder Ave. The recipient address was hand-written in block letters, and the return address was “PO Box T, Teh CA 93581.” There is no “Box T” at the Tehachapi Post Office.

The letter contains scatological and sexual references and references to the Tehachapi Association of Teachers but no overt threats.

Hart took the letter to the Tehachapi Police Department.

“The letter I saw was ugly and offensive but not threatening,” said Tehachapi Police Chief Jeff Kermode. “The letter alone is not a crime.”

Hart said she has no idea who sent the letter.

“There is no proof. There is no one to accuse,” she said. “It’s sort of the nature of some people. When politics are not managed in a civil way, it tends to attract people who are like that. I’m always begging for civility.”

Hart said the letter frightened  some other people as well and that she has assistance in the quest to discover the sender.

“More people are looking into it than before,” she said.

Hart plans to leave the matter alone for now.

“I don’t want to provoke any more. I don’t want to stir up any more. The crazies are coming out of the woodwork.”

Kermode said the police department is looking into the situation to see if there is a pattern. He said Tehachapi police and Bear Valley police are in contact on the issue.

The delivery of the envelope to Graham constituted an illegal act if it was dropped into an official Postal Service mailbox without having gone through the Postal Service system.

“It is illegal to use a mailbox as a way of correspondence without using the Postal Service,” Watts said.

Postal Inspector Jarrett Arrington of Los Angeles said his office, which handles the Tehachapi area, had not received any complaints from victims in regard to threatening correspondence. The Postal Inspection Service is the federal law enforcement agency that deals with problems relating to the U.S. mail.

Tehachapi Unified School District Superintendent Richard Swanson said no other disturbing messages to the Trustees have been reported.

‘Hate mail’
In a statement April 2 before the school board in the Tehachapi High School gymnasium, Jacobsen Middle School teacher Susan Galloway said a threatening message had come to her by way of e-mail after she had spoken at the March 10 board meeting.

“After 20 years at Jacobsen I received my first hate mail because I got up in front of you,” she said.

She said later, “I wanted the board to know they aren't the only ones.”
Galloway declined to elaborate on the content of the e-mail or to say if she had reported it to police.