Two 14-year-olds arrested for threatening on social media to stage school shooting in Florida
Two 14-year-old students were arrested for threatening on social networks with a shooting at Bloomingdale High School in Hillsborough County (west coast of Florida), authorities said Tuesday.
Both teenagers, Alex Moraguez and Denis Herrera, apparently used file images of various guns and weapons and uploaded them to the Snapchat platform, which they accompanied with phrases claiming to possess the weaponry and threatening to kill everyone in the school.
“The posts were made between May 11 and May 13 and contained images of firearms with messages superimposed over them that threatened violence at Bloomingdale High School,” the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office (HSCO) said in a statement.
The HCSO’s School Threat Assessment Response (STAR) unit tracked the postings to Moraguez and Herrera, both 14, who. confessed to agents to being the perpetrators of the threats to the aforementioned high school. Moraguez and Herrera are not students at Bloomingdale High School.
A “prank” to look “funny.”
Questioned by police officers, the minors said that it was all about A “prank” to appear “funny”.. However, the HCSO took the threats seriously and initiated a criminal investigation in collaboration with the FBI.
The HCSO, stated Sheriff Chad Chronister, “takes all threats to our schools and community seriously, regardless of intent,” and “we will continue to investigate and prosecute those who make threats, whether they are a joke or not.”
The two were arrested and transported to the Juvenile Assessment Center on charges of “a second-degree felony for a written threat or electronic threat to carry out a mass shooting or act of terrorism.”
His arrest “should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks they can make threats on social media without consequences,” added Sheriff Chronister.
Just this month, an 18-year-old student at Taravella High School in Broward County (north of Miami) was arrested for threatening a shooting at the school that went viral on social media.
In the threat, the arrestee, Catrina Petit, wrote: “Mark this day (5/5/23). I will shoot up the school and kill everyone. the students here,” a threat that initially led to redoubled vigilance in schools and a reminder that authorities will have “zero tolerance” for such messages.
Since the massacre of 17 people perpetrated in 2018 by Cruz at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, which cost the lives of 14 students and 3 staff members.In this state, there have been numerous arrests for death threats and false threats with weapons in schools, most of them made by teenagers.
