It’s like a contagion that peaked after the Parkland school shooting and showed some signs of dying down. That is, until two new cases cropped up within the past week of threats being made against a school.
A 13-year-old boy on Sunday threatened to “shoot up” Pines Middle School via an Instagram chat group.
Last week, it was a 17-year-old boy telling his classmates at Pembroke Pines Charter High School that they would get to “live another day” because he forgot his gun in his car.
Both teens chalked it up to “a joke.” And each landed a felony charge of making a false report concerning the use of a weapon in a violent manner — a new means in Florida of combating pranksters, copycats and those with ill intent.
Such school threats used to happen “from time to time,” but the number of local incidents has shot up since the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas, said Maria Schneider, supervising prosecutor in the juvenile division of the Broward State Attorney’s Office.
Read more at the Sun Sentinel.
