Middle school teacher charged with making false terror threat

A Michigan middle school teacher was charged Monday for allegedly making a false report or threat of terrorism, just days after she was arrested for distributing notes that alluded to a school shooting.

Johnna Rhone, 59, was arrested on Dec. 18 for allegedly placing at least three threatening, handwritten notes that morning around Jefferson Middle School in St. Clair Shores, a school about 20 miles outside of Detroit.

Surveillance footage caught Rhone placing the notes at teacher stations around the school, prosecutors told the Detroit Free Press.

Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido told the Detroit News at least one note contained a threat of a school shooting. The note read: “Start break early. He’s gonna do it. Just don’t be in the hall after lunch. Boom! Get it?”

Rhone, who has worked in the district for 21 years, will fight the charges, an attorney told The Detroit News. She was arraigned on Monday and pleaded not guilty. Her bond was set at $75,000.

The Macomb Daily reported she was placed on house arrest while she awaits a Feb. 1, 2022, probable cause hearing. Rhone faces up to 20 years in prison and a $20,000 maximum fine if convicted of the threat of terrorism charge, which is a felony.

Michigan has been on edge since the Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School, which left four dead and seven injured. Despite the tragedy, some students have made threats against schools, including eight Detroit-area students recently arrested and charged with intentional threat to commit an act of violence. 

Lucido, the prosecutor overseeing the case against Rhone, said of the teacher’s behavior that he could “expect something like this from a child, not an adult.”

“I can expect something like this as it relates to a cry for help or somebody who is maybe desperate or someone who wants to have a day off,” he told the Macomb Daily.

“But I do not have a crystal ball to give you an exact answer as to why an adult who is in supervision and control of our children in a classroom would even think about doing something like this.”