A 10-year-old student in Florida was recently arrested on charges of making a written threat to carry out a mass shooting just days following the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.
According to a Facebook post from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, the fifth-grader at Patriot Elementary School in Cape Coral sent a threatening text message on May 28 that was then relayed to sheriff’s deputies.
The School Threat Enforcement Team was immediately sent to investigate the situation, and they eventually passed the case on to the Youth Services Criminal Division “due to the nature of the incident.”
Following an interview with the boy, detectives arrested him on probable cause.
“This student’s behavior is sickening, especially after the recent tragedy in Uvalde, Texas,” Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said, adding that although the child’s threat was fake, he did not hesitate in meting out the appropriate punishment.
“Right now is not the time to act like a little delinquent. It’s not funny,” he said. “This child made a fake threat, and now he’s experiencing real consequences.”
The sheriff also said that his investigators did not hesitate for a second to take the matter seriously.
“Making sure our children are safe is paramount. We will have law and order in our schools! My team didn’t hesitate one second … NOT ONE SECOND, to investigate this threat,” Marceno stated on Facebook.