South Florida high school student arrested in viral shooting threat
An 18-year-old Taravella High School student was arrested Friday following a viral school shooting threat that traveled across Florida over the past few days, panicking students and parents.
She said she did it as a “joke,” according to the school’s principal, Mary DeArmas.
Coral Springs Police arrested the teenager on charges of threatening to commit a school shooting, among other felonies, the department announced on Facebook.
The teenager sent the threat using another student’s name and “computer access,” the department wrote. The threat then spread on social media, “causing concern in several counties throughout the state.”
Students’ accounts were hacked as part of the prank, and “are now the subject of online bullying” because their names were used, DeArmas wrote in an email to students’ families.
She did not say whether the teenager would be expelled, but said “in addition to criminal charges, the student responsible will face disciplinary consequences in accordance with the Code Book for Student Conduct.”
Images circulating on social media leading up to the arrest depict a text message threatening a shooting Friday at an unnamed school. The lack of location added to the hysteria. Police departments across the state and even the country issued statements assuring the public that the threats were not credible.
“There is a general school threat moving through social media,” the City of Weston tweeted on Thursday. “BCPS has made a call to parents stating it was not specific in nature & is not considered a credible threat. No Weston schools were identified.”
In California, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office tweeted that it was “aware of social media posts threatening that a school shooting will occur today. The threat does not mention a specific school. At this time, the threat has not been deemed to be credible.”
Still, not knowing whether to believe the text, South Florida parents expressed fears online, dozens saying that they planned to keep their children home from school Friday just in case.
According to attendance data provided by the Broward school district, only 62% of high school students went to school Friday, compared to 82% the week before.
At Monarch High in Coconut Creek, so many students and teachers were absent that parents of children who did go to school were picking them up early, Linda Versil, whose two sons attend the school, said in a message. One of her sons told her they were spending all day in the auditorium since no one was there. He asked her to pick him up because he was getting bored, she said.
The viral threat appeared just after a series of hoax active shooter calls locked down college campuses across South Florida and surrounding counties, the latest in a series of prank calls and threats that often interrupt the school day for hours as police respond.
Some parents said they were even considering homeschooling.
“Since when [did] taking my kids to school started to feel like a Russian roulette?” one parent wrote in a Coral Springs neighborhood group.
At a news conference Friday announcing a new district-wide safety rule that will require students to use clear backpacks, School Board Chair Lori Alhadeff declined to provide further details on the incident, saying “we are thankful for the Coral Springs Police Department for making the arrest.”
