FROM STAFF REPORTS
A Lake Norman High School student will face consequences in the juvenile justice system in connection with a threat of mass violence at the school following an investigation by the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office received reports of a screen shot circulating that referenced a threat against the school on Sunday, September 15. This information was received after multiple other investigations into a social media post about school shootings nationwide.
During the ICSO investigation, threat assessment detectives, working with school resource officers, determined that a juvenile falsely created a document implicating another juvenile in a plan to commit a shooting at the school, Sheriff Darren Campbell said in a news release.
This document was shared among students at multiple schools within the county, Campbell said.
Threat assessment detectives presented this information to Department of Juvenile Services staff, who agreed to petitions for a felony charge of making a false report concerning mass violence on education property, as well as cyberbullying, according to the news release.
The student’s name and age were not released because the student is a juvenile.
The Iredell County Sheriff’s Office takes all threats of mass violence seriously and will conduct a thorough investigation into every allegation and pursue appropriate charges when necessary, Campbell said.
This school year alone, there have been 25 reports concerning mass violence, 11 of which have resulted in felony charges.
My thoughts are that if felony charges were taken out then the juvenile status should be waived and the public should be aware of the student’s name. Why should they be protected?
I totally agree! If it’s a felony, it needs to be escalated to an adult status and charged as such. Make an example out of some of these instances and this would stop. This is seriously getting out of hand.
It’s past time to come down hard on those threatening harm to others. Some do it for attention or fame. For that reason I feel names should be withheld – juvenile or not – unless needed to help find them. We need more programs like Power Cross for our children. You can look at our world today and see that taking God out of schools is when most of this started.
So glad these threats are being taken seriously.