Police: Fla. Boy Arrested After Threat To Kill 100 In Wake Of Massacre
Parent Of Teen's Friend Intercepts E-Mail, Say Police
POSTED: Thursday, April 19, 2007
UPDATED: 6:41 pm EDT April 19,
2007
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A 14-year-old Florida boy is accused of threatening to top the death toll of 33 people killed in the Virginia Tech massacre and kill 100 people, police told media outlets in Jacksonville.
The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office arrested a 14-year-old Bartram Trail High School student following alleged threats the teen made in an e-mail to conduct a mass school shooting, WJXT-TV reported.
Sheriff’s office authorities said they were notified Wednesday of the e-mail, which had been sent to a friend of the suspect, the report said.
A parent of the friend intercepted the e-mail and called the sheriff's office to report the alleged threat, deputies said.
Deputies with the Youth Resource Unit began an investigation and notified the school system.
According to authorities, the suspect, whose name will not be used because of his age, stated in the e-mail that he was going to top the record of 33 people killed in a school shooting and went on to state that his goal was 100 victims.
"Once we received that information, our policies and procedure are to call the student in and any other students to follow the leads. If we feel that a search is necessary, we surely do that," Bartram Trail High School Principal Brennan Asplen said.
Deputies said the investigation revealed that the teen had made similar threats several weeks before that went unreported, WJXT-TV reported.
The suspect is charged with threatening to throw, project, place or discharge any destructive device, which is a second-degree felony. He was booked into the county jail and then transported to the St. Johns River Juvenile Detention Facility.
Asplen said authorities did a sweep of the school and lockers and that he wants students and parents to know the campus is safe.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
Copyright 2007 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and
Local6.com.
All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten
or redistributed.