At the Windham High School varsity basketball game Friday night, Windham police Chief Richard Lewsen was pleasantly surprised when he was surrounded by grateful students and parents.

“A great many parents and students circled around the superintendent and myself, and they gave us basketballs and a jersey and just clapped for us,” Lewsen said.

The expression of gratitude, school and police officials say, was a welcome end to a week that featured an unnerving and chaotic chain of events set off by two threatening emails sent to school administrators. The accused perpetrator, Justin Woodbury, 16, is a former Windham Middle School student. For three days, Regional School Unit 14 Superintendent Sandy Prince shut down the Windham-Raymond district, as the Windham police and the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit raced to crack the case.

On Dec. 16, police arrested Woodbury and transported him to the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland. Cumberland County Assistant District Attorney Christine Thibeault has charged Woodbury with two felony charges of Class C terrorizing. If Woodbury is found to have committed the crimes, he could be committed to a juvenile detention center until the age of 21, Thibeault said. Thibeault did not return calls seeking information regarding the next steps in Woodbury’s criminal proceedings.

Even in the aftermath of the multi-day shutdown Dec. 15-17, Lewsen and other police department officials repeatedly declined to provide specific details about the nature of the threats, or even broad descriptions of how they conducted the investigation into the matter. School administrators, however, were more willing to reflect on the chaos of the preceding week.

For Prince, ensuring the safety of all district staff and students for days on end – under the shadow of a pair of violent threats – presented an unprecedented test to the 12-year RSU 14 superintendent.

“People said I looked kind of beat up by Friday,” he said. “With 3,300 students, having that sense of responsibility – this was probably the biggest challenge I’ve ever been faced with.”

When Prince checked his email Monday morning, Dec. 15 and found a message from an unknown source vowing to do harm to students and staff, he said he immediately thought back to emergency trainings and “tabletop drills” he had participated in that were conducted by Scott Parker, a state emergency management consultant.

“You pick a crisis,” Prince said, describing the drills. “You kind of walk through what you would do.”

In the midst of the very real crisis that had arrived by way of his computer’s inbox, Prince said he had a general sense of what to do next.

“I wanted to make sure that the kids were safe and thought that we needed to do an evacuation,” he said.

Following the school lockouts and evacuations, Prince and his 17 staff members at the district central office fielded a constant stream of inquiries and visits from law enforcement officers.

“It was extremely busy,” Prince said. “A lot of forces coming at you – TV stations, phone calls from the press, obviously there were some parents calling here. I have a radio system walkie-talkie that I’m listening to, and I’ve got a great team here, and we’re talking to one another. It was very hectic, but we were on a mission.”

Every day between Monday and Wednesday, all district principals and administrators would meet with law enforcement twice a day at the central office for updates on the investigation, Prince said. In between the meetings, the principals worked out of their respective schools.

At Windham High School, Principal Chris Howell and School Resource Officer Jeff Smith were the only people occupying the entire building, which was completely locked down.

“It was pretty quiet, with the exception of news crews who kept knocking on the door,” Howell said.

“It was eerily quiet,” Howell added. “It was a bit unnerving.”

Every day, it was up to Prince to make the call on whether there would be school the next day. Prince had determined to wait it out until the police figured out the case. But it was not clear at all how long that would take.

“I was going to take it day by day,” Prince said. “We were fortunate with the computer crimes unit, it could have gone longer than it took. They worked really hard up there.”

“It went through my mind that we may be out the whole week,” Prince added.

In Prince’s view, the emergency response was a success. He attributes that, in part, to the district’s long-standing relationship with the Windham police, forged during many emergency drills.

“I think it flowed particularly well, given that we’re not first-comers,” Prince said. “We knew each other. I think it just helps.”

To celebrate the Windham police’s handling of the matter, as well as the general community response to the threats, Windham resident Glen Halliday, the owner of 207 Brand, a Maine design company, and the father of three RSU 14 students, is selling “Windham Gratitude Tees” to benefit the police. Halliday designed the $15 shirts, which read, “Keep Calm, We Live in Windham,” and will give all the proceeds to the department.

“Everybody really came together during this horrific event to make sure that our kids were OK,” Halliday said. “When we’re faced with a threat, the town comes together, and we can make it through everything. This is probably one of the scariest things I’ve had to go through since I’ve lived in this town. To me, it kind of hit home.”

As of Friday, Dec. 19, one day after putting the T-shirts on the market, Halliday had sold 50 shirts. Halliday said he hopes to raise $1,000 for the department.

“It’s all bad press about cops these days,” Halliday said. “I thought, here’s an excellent opportunity for us to do something positive for the crews that take care of us every day, that protect us every day.”

Lewsen, who is retiring at the end of April, said he appreciates Halliday’s efforts. Lewsen said he was especially pleased by the spontaneous applause at the basketball game Friday night.

“I was really kind of surprised,” he said. “Very seldom do you have 400 to 500 people clap for you and thank us for trying to keep them safe.”