Children As Young As 11 Charged For Making Copycat Threats After Michigan School Shooting
Published
Just weeks after four were killed in a mass shooting at a school in Michigan, children as young as 11 are facing charges after making copycat threats of violence towards schools.
On November 30, a shooting spree at Oxford High School led to four deaths and seven injuries, including a teacher. While the suspect for the shooting has now appeared in court, students in other schools in the area have been facing charges for making threats online and carrying weapons.
Bloomberg reports that a lot of the threats, being made on TikTok and other social media platforms, aren’t being made to a specific school and don’t carry credibility, but they’re enough to seriously disrupt education.
According to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, there have been nine active and 235 non-active shooter incidents at US schools so far this year, and school districts are taking each warning seriously.
All schools in the Michigan and Washington states are on high alert. On Wednesday (15th December), Seattle Police Department (SPD) ordered Franklin High School, south Seattle, to close after they were alerted to such threats of a shooting being made on social media.
According to the Detroit Free Press, a Wyandotte student brandished an army knife in a bathroom fight, injuring an upperclassman recently, while a Southfield student was arrested after getting caught with a semi-automatic pistol in his pocket.
‘Parents, please talk to your children,’ said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy during a news conference addressing the influx of copycat threats. ‘Let them know this is serious. Let them know even if they intend it to be a prank, it isn’t a joke.’
‘There have been a ton of copycats, and we’re investigating every one, because we never want to take anything for granted,’ Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told Detroit Free Press.
‘We’d rather check out 1,000 nothings than miss one real deal’, he added, revealing they’ve already investigated close to 140 threats so far.
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Topics: News, Gun Crime, Social Media
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