WESTLAKE, Texas – A Westlake High school student was arrested after police said they made terroristic threats against the school. And that’s not the only school threat being investigated in Central Texas this week.

Multiple concerning threats of violence have been made at local high schools this week.

Westlake High School says it was alerted on Sunday, Sept. 8, by several students via its anonymous tip line about a student making threats.

“We take every threat seriously. And so, we’re going to we’re going to respond quickly, regardless of how simple or how extreme the threat may be. We’re going to follow up on every single one,” said Dr. Jeff Arnett, Eanes ISD Superintendent.

Superintendent Dr. Jeff Arnett says it came over Snapchat and was about a possible act of violence against another student or group of students.

Eanes ISD police immediately began investigating. Within just a couple of hours, they found there was some legitimacy to the threat. The student was identified and arrested.

“It was our police department acting in concert with our administration as well as the students, everybody together. It really took a community to respond to the possibility of a threat of violence,” said Superintendent Arnett.

This all comes amid growing concerns about school safety after two students and two teachers were killed at a Georgia high school last week.

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Superintendent Arnett says with the increase in violence across the nation, the safety of students is at the forefront.

“In response to what happened in another state last week, anytime we observe a tragedy like that that occurs in a school setting, it obviously raises our level of awareness and vigilance. So, we commend the students especially,” Arnett said.

Further east, the Dime Box ISD says it’s also investigating an anonymous threat that happened on Monday, Sept. 9.

The district posed on ‘X’ that law enforcement was notified. Officials say the campus is secure and students are safe.

Superintendent Arnett says Westlake High School has multiple safety protocols in place to keep children safe, like an anonymous tip line and a number of alert systems. But he stresses if you see something, say something.

“We want them to say something. And the anonymous tip line, what we call Westlake Watch is certainly one way to do that, but more importantly, to communicate with adults. So, if they feel threatened in any way, we want them to share that with us so that we can act on their behalf and make sure that everybody is kept safe,” said Arnett.

The school is not identifying the student arrested because they are a minor.

Though it’s easy to mistake portions of Austin neighborhood Rosedale for other nearby neighborhoods (it’s not Allandale, Hyde Park, Brentwood, or Bryker Woods), the central northwestern neighborhood is full of great dining and drinking options. There are Bill’s on Burnet with huge burgers and Green Bay pride, upscale highly rated tasting menus of Craft Omakase, and everything in between, from tacos to dosas to banh mi. With that in mind, here is Eater Austin’s dining and drinking guide to Rosedale.

For the purposes of this map, this guide focuses only on businesses located north of West 38th Street, west of Burnet Road, east of MoPac, and south of Hancock Drive. Check out Eater Austin’s guides to nearby neighborhoods Brentwood and Allandale, as well as our other neighborhood dining guides.

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AUSTIN – A federal trial is set to begin Monday over claims that supporters of former President Donald Trump threatened and harassed a Biden-Harris campaign bus in Texas four years ago, disrupting the campaign on the last day of early voting.

Democrats on the bus said they feared for their lives as Trump supporters in dozens of trucks and cars nearly caused collisions, harassing their convoy for more than 90 minutes, hitting a Biden-Harris campaign staffer’s car and forcing the bus driver to repeatedly swerve for safety.

“For at least 90 minutes, defendants terrorized and menaced the driver and passengers,” the lawsuit alleges. “They played a madcap game of highway ‘chicken’ coming within three to four inches of the bus. They tried to run the bus off the road.”

The highway confrontation prompted an FBI investigation, which led then-President Trump to declare that in his opinion, “these patriots did nothing wrong.”

Among those suing is former Texas state senator from Fort Worth and Democratic nominee for governor Wendy Davis, who was on the bus that day. Davis rose to prominence in 2013 with her 13-hour filibuster of an anti-abortion bill in the state Capitol. The other three plaintiffs are a campaign volunteer, staffer and the bus driver.

Videos of the confrontation on Oct. 30, 2020, that were shared on social media, including some recorded by the Trump supporters, show a group of cars and pickup trucks — many adorned with large Trump flags — riding alongside the campaign bus as it traveled on I-35 from San Antonio to Austin. The Trump supporters at times boxed in the bus, slowed it down, kept it from exiting the highway and repeatedly forced the bus driver to make evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision, the lawsuit says.

On the two previous days, Biden-Harris supporters were subjected to death threats, with some Trump supporters displaying weapons, according to the lawsuit. These threats in combination with the highway confrontation led Democrats to cancel an event later in the day.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages, accuses the six defendants of violating the “Ku Klux Klan Act,” an 1871 federal law to stop political violence and intimidation tactics. It alleges the defendants were members of local groups near San Antonio that coordinated the confrontation.

The same law was used in part to indict Trump on federal election interference charges over attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection. Enacted by Congress during the Reconstruction Era, the law was created to protect Black men’s right to vote by prohibiting political violence.

Francisco Canseco, an attorney for three of the defendants, said his clients acted lawfully and did not infringe on the free speech rights of those on the bus.

“It’s more of a constitutional issue,” Canseco said. “It’s more of who has the greater right to speak behind their candidate.”

Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, is set to preside over the trial. He denied the defendants’ pretrial motion for a summary judgment in their favor, ruling last month that the KKK Act prohibits the physical intimidation of people traveling to political rallies, even when racial bias isn’t a factor.

While one of the defendants, Eliazar Cisneros, argued his group had a First Amendment right to demonstrate support for their candidate, the judge wrote that “assaulting, intimidating, or imminently threatening others with force is not protected expression.”

“Just as the First Amendment does not protect a driver waving a political flag from running a red light, it does not protect Defendants from allegedly threatening Plaintiffs with reckless driving,” Pitman wrote.

A prior lawsuit filed over the “Trump Train” alleged the San Marcos Police Department violated the Ku Klux Klan Act by failing to send a police escort after multiple 911 calls were made and a bus rider said his life was threatened. It accused officers of privately laughing and joking about the emergency calls. San Marcos settled the lawsuit in 2023 for $175,000 and a requirement that law enforcement get training on responding to political violence.