A 12-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy in South Carolina have been charged for posting a school threat on social media.
The Spartanburg Police Department said the two children were arrested on Monday and charged with breach of the peace and student threat, WYFF reported.
Spartanburg Police Major Art Littlejohn would not say if the two children were students. He said police began receiving calls about the threat early Sunday afternoon.
“The video, along with photos from an Instagram post, depicts an individual wearing a ski mask and brandishing firearms,” Littlejohn said. “An AR-15 style rifle was also observed on a picture which included a written text atop the photos stating, ‘Monday 2:30 and Fearmecarver14.'”
The video in the post was “canned,” he said, and not a new recording. The video indicated a threat to Carver Middle School to take place Monday afternoon.
Police posted extra security at Carver and several other schools.
It’s not clear if the new arrests were part of 21 juvenile arrests for school threats that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said had taken place since the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on September 4. Two teachers and two students were killed in that shooting, as CrimeOnline reported, and 14-year-old Colt Gray and his father, Colin Gray — who gave him the rifle he used in the shooting as a Christmas present — have been charged.
SLED told WCBD that it was aware of more than 60 threats in the state since that time.
“These threats are extremely serious and will be treated as such,” said Renée Wunderlich, SLED’s director of public information.
A 12-year-old student was arrested last week in Berkeley County after a social media threat to “shoot up” a middle school. The student was charged with student threat and unlawful communication.
“School threats are not a joke,” said SLED Chief Mark Keel. “Law enforcement takes every threat seriously, and everyone needs to understand that there are serious consequences.”
Law enforcement across the country has reported dozens of threats and arrests of juveniles since September 4.
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[Featured image: Carver Middle School/Google Maps]
