ELIZABETHVILLE - State police at Lykens got involved in a bullying incident Tuesday at Upper Dauphin Area High School and a student has been expelled.
According to Trooper Robert T. Hicks, public information officer for Troop H-Lykens, the incident involved two students and there was never any threat of harm to other students.
As the involved students were juveniles, their identities were not released. The Dauphin County district attorney's office is being consulted as to whether charges will be filed, police said.
Police said the matter stemmed from an incident that occurred Friday at lunchtime.
"The bullied juvenile approached another juvenile whom he thought was talking about him and squared up to him in an attempt to fight him," the police report read. "The bullied juvenile then said something to the effect of, 'I'm going to clap you.' No fight occurred because teachers got in between the students."
Students who overheard the altercation then looked up the word "clap" in an urban dictionary, police said. The term in the urban dictionary is sometimes used to define shooting someone or something. Over the weekend, students started posting information on Facebook, police said, and rumors began from there.
"School officials and state police took necessary precautions to get to the bottom of this incident," Hicks said.
As a precautionary measure, the high school has expelled the student and the Upper Dauphin Area School District requested a district-wide police presence Tuesday. The district properties include the high school building in Elizabethville, and the district office, middle school and elementary school complexes all in Loyalton, northern Dauphin County.
The district posted the following response on its website at 10 a.m. Tuesday: "The incident which caused the uproar on social media sites has been thoroughly investigated and the state police have found no viable threat."