Police in Florida arrested three students at a middle school and high school for posting several alarming videos on social media.
The videos simulated a mass shooting inside the school using a toy gun while the school was being evacuated for a bomb threat.
In a news release by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, police said they arrested students from two public schools for posting videos on TikTok pretending it was a mass shooting.
Deputies arrested two teenagers from the Parrish Community High School on Thursday, February 9, while one other student from a nearby school, the Buffalo Creek Middle School, was arrested on Wednesday, February 8, for sharing a similar video.
The Manatee County Crime Stoppers alerted local authorities to the videos circulating on social media. Authorities later learned that the students filmed the videos during the Parrish Community High School bomb threat evacuation on Tuesday, February 7.
A school resource deputy at the high school quickly identified the student in the video, and authorities arrested him at his home on Thursday morning.
Later that day, authorities received two tips from anonymous people about another alarming video on TikTok depicting another mass shooting with a toy gun similar to the previous video. They determined that the second video was also taken during Tuesday’s bomb threat evacuation.
The student who posted the latest mass shooting simulation video was on school grounds when police showed up, and he was immediately taken into custody.
The high school student admitted to recording and posting the video. The police charged him with a second-degree felony for making electronic or written threats to kill people, inflict bodily harm, or conduct a mass shooting.
Students and staff at the Parish Community High School were ushered out on Tuesday, February 7, after police received two bomb threats against the school. School officials said they had received four bomb threats against the school since February 1, all of which were not credible.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s office and Manatee County Schools officials held a news conference on Tuesday saying that police had spent over three hours clearing the campus after the evacuation. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office also responded to the campus and brought their bomb dogs to assist with finding and neutralizing the alleged threat.
During the conference, Cynthia Saunders, Manatee County Schools Superintendent, said that the school and the local authorities take these threats very seriously.
Sheriff Rick Wells urged parents to talk to their children and warn them about making idle threats.
