17-year-old sentenced for making threats that closed Beaver Dam schools in May

17-year-old Dylan Graf of Beaver Dam was sentenced Friday for his role in threatening a school shooting, which resulted in classes at all Beaver Dam schools being cancelled on May 9.

Graf plead to one count of Making a Terrorist Threat and one count of Unlawful Use of a Computerized Communication System. The court placed him on a felony Deferred Prosecution Agreement on the Terrorist Threat charge and sentenced him to a year of probation of the Computer charge. In addition, Graf is not allowed contact with Beaver Dam School District Properties.

Graf and two teens sent a Beaver Dam High School Assistant Principal an email that said in part, “I plan to enter the proximity of your board of education tomorrow with hatred within my grasp. With a pistol in one hand, and the button that shall set off several explosive materials in the other…. I hate all of you…Don’t try and stop me, there’s no way to find out who I am. I advise you to be prepared tomorrow. I’ll be executing my plan during the 4th period. So long and goodnight.”

Law enforcement later determined that the threat was more of a hoax and that the three individuals never intended to carry out their threats.

Beaver Dam School officials called off classes and law enforcement traced the email to Graf and the two juveniles, one of whom lives in Las Vegas. All three were apprehended. The teens cases are being handled in the juvenile court systems of Wisconsin and Nevada, those proceedings are not public.

DA Kurt Klomberg consulted with then-Superintendent of Schools Steve Vessey about a possible outcomes for the offenders. Klomberg praised Vessey’s decision to close the schools on the day of the threat.