Two students were suspended from West Bloomfield High School after disturbing images were found on their cell phones, including a swastika, a handgun and an apparent joke about the school being the scene of a shooting spree.

But police didn't know it was a joke, triggering an investigation that led detectives to the homes of several students just before winter break.

Police Chief Michael Patton said the investigation started with a girl who went to the police station to report that she was being bullied at school.

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It was 8 p.m. when the tips came in.

A teenage girl had gone to the West Bloomfield Police Department and said she was being bullied by some kids at school and that she was scared, police said.

What transpired was something much bigger: an investigation into what police feared was a planned shooting spree at West Bloomfield High School, where two students were suspended just before winter break for posting "things that were of concern" on the Internet, said Police Chief Michael Patton.

According to Patton, police found "concerning" online images with the help of "some other parents" who provided additional information to police that bolstered the girl's complaint about threatening behavior at West Bloomfield High School. The images include:

A student holding a black handgun.

A student with a drawn swastika on the web of his hand.

A student who had used an app that lets people geo-locate one another. He was at West Bloomfield High School but had relabeled the school, "School shooting site number 3."

It was a startling post, especially as West Bloomfield High School continues to struggle with the suicides of three sophomore students in 2015, followed by the death of a popular theater teacher, who died in February.

"I thought, 'I'm not waiting until tomorrow to figure this out,' " recalled Patton, who rounded up a team of detectives and dispatched them to the homes of the students who were in the pictures. "We notified the school right away, too."

After going to several students' homes, interviewing the teens and their parents, police learned that there was no real threat to anyone at the school and that the posts were pranks, said Patton, who was frustrated and dumbfounded by the ordeal.

"Parents need to constantly talk to their kids. Some of these things can follow them around for a long time," Patton said, stressing: "Displays of swastikas and guns are not funny ... Think about what you're doing before you post this stuff ... You think it's funny, but it's not."

Officials at West Bloomfield High School did not return phone calls for comment. The names of the suspended students have not been disclosed. Police said no charges will be filed.

It all happened on Dec. 6, the night the girl filed a bullying complaint. A door-to-door investigation followed. The next day, word quickly spread around school that police had been to several students' homes the night before, and that several students were in trouble.

But it was mostly students gossiping.

There was no official announcement from school officials, according to students and a handful of school parents contacted by the Free Press.

West Bloomfield High School senior Josh Cooper said while he knew little about what actually happened, he was upset to hear that students were spewing hateful messages online.

"Coming off a year of heartbreak ... it's hard. It's sad," Cooper said. "It hurts to know that there are people in your own community ... that are engaging in such hateful activity. And no one wishes that this happened."

But Cooper believes there's a lesson to be learned.

"If there's anything positive that could come from it, it would be that everyone needs to learn from this," Cooper said. "Let this be a message: your actions and your words can have consequences. Just think before you hit send," he said.

Cooper noted that a week before the the suspensions, West Bloomfield High School had hosted an event called "U-Matter." Cooper is cofounder of the program, which aims to help students, especially those facing problems, feel good about themselves and let them know that there are others looking out for them.

"U-Matter" was, in part, a response to the three suicides.

"There is no part of me that isn't immensely confident that we will come back from this," Cooper said of the latest suspensions. "This will not define our school year."

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @Tbaldas.