Bret Harte High Evacuated Due To Reported Suspicious Backpack

Angels Camp, CA – A scare for Bret Harte Union High School and several nearby businesses, as they were evacuated this afternoon after a report of a suspicious backpack left near the campus.

Angels Camp Police detailed that the call came in at 2 p.m. Officers raced to the area and immediately began evacuating individuals on campus and at adjacent businesses to a safe location. Next, officers searched the campus but found no backpack and declared it to be safe and clear of any possible threats. All people were allowed to return to the school and surrounding businesses around 2:45 pm.

Police believed that this was a false report and that the person reporting the threat called from a spoofed phone number. They explained, “Spoofing” is when a caller deliberately falsifies the information transmitted to caller ID to purposely disguise their identity.”

The investigation is ongoing, with detectives trying to determine the origin of the call to identify the involved parties. Anyone with information or the identity of the culprit is asked to contact the Angels Camp Police Department at (209) 736-2567 or acpd@angelscamp.gov.

The units that assisted in this incident included the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office, the South County Fire Departments, Angels Camp, and Altaville Melones.