Nine South Florida children have been arrested since August, accused of posting threats against Broward County schools online.
The threats prompt large, sometimes expensive, responses from law enforcement, breed fear in parents and students and potentially leave lasting effects on the children who allegedly made the posts — often as a joke with no way to actually carry out a violent act.
Online threats against schools have been an ongoing issue in South Florida, and across the country, for years. Police said months after the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that such threats were on the rise. When students returned to in-person classrooms in 2021 after the pandemic, police once again said they were seeing an uptick. And so far, only in the second month of the 2024-25 school year, the online threats and subsequent arrests have continued.
Between Aug. 10 and Tuesday, a total of nine Broward County students ages 11 to 15 have been arrested for making threats against schools, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Wednesday. The threats were often posted on Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok, and after their arrests, the Sheriff’s Office said several students said they intended them as a joke.
It was unclear Wednesday evening whether any students have been arrested on similar charges in Palm Beach County and in Miami-Dade County.
Girl, 14, arrested for making online threats of violence at multiple Broward schools, officials say
Six of the nine Broward students have been arrested since Sept. 4, when two teachers and two students were killed in a shooting at a Georgia high school. Superintendent Howard Hepburn at a news conference Tuesday said he was “in shock that students are making these types of threats” after the latest school shooting.
Sheriff Gregory Tony emphasized just before the start of the school year: “None of this stuff is a joking or laughing matter … We are going to track you down and arrest you.”
School Board member Debbi Hixon told the Sun Sentinel on Sunday that the number of threats are a serious problem.
“Frustrating is not even the right word. It’s disheartening. It’s maddening. It’s disgusting that our students, our staff, our community in general have to live with this anxiety on this constant basis,” said Hixon, whose husband was killed the Parkland school shooting. “How will you ever feel safe and comfortable in your school if [threats] are made every day?”
Recent arrests
The first arrest came two days before school began. By the end of the first week of school, two 13-year-old students were arrested for posts they allegedly made on Snapchat.
On Sept. 4, an 11-year-old boy in sixth grade was arrested for making a false bomb threat at Somerset Academy Key Middle and High School in Deerfield Beach. Then last Friday, a 14-year-old Blanche Ely High School student was arrested after allegedly writing, “… Im shooting this school up…” on Snapchat, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Three students were arrested over this past weekend — a 14-year-old girl on Saturday and two on Sunday. An 11-year-old boy allegedly posted on Instagram a threat of a school shooting at Central Charter school in Lauderdale Lakes on Sunday, the Sheriff’s Office said, and a 15-year-old boy threatened to shoot one of his classmates at Cooper City High School in a message on WhatsApp.
Most recently, a 12-year-old girl in Lauderhill was arrested late Monday for allegedly making online threats against multiple schools, and on Tuesday, the FBI tipped off the Sheriff’s Office about a threat of a shooting at North Broward Preparatory School that was shared on TikTok. A 13-year-old Parkland girl who “said she did it in response to a dare from friends” was arrested, BSO said.
‘Students aren’t getting the message’ on school threats, superintendent says after another arrest
Consequences
A charge of making written threats to kill, do bodily injury or conduct a mass shooting is a felony in Florida.
Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor in a statement this week said each case is handled on an individual basis and that a panel of senior prosecutors reviews evidence in each case to decide whether to file charges or refer them to programs for help. Prosecutors review each student’s behavioral history and needs, the statement said.
In a prepared video statement, Judge Elijah Williams, assigned to the Juvenile Delinquency Division, warned students that if they are charged and found guilty, they will be facing a maximum of up to three years in “a lockdown facility.”
South Florida criminal defense attorneys Lawrence Meltzer and Stephan Dobrinsky, of Meltzer & Bell, P.A., routinely represent students who are accused of making written threats. Speaking generally and not about a specific case, they said while law enforcement and school officials should and do treat cases seriously and with sensitivity, oftentimes the lives of young children are being upended over baseless posts, when they had no actual access to weapons and were not truly a danger to others.
“It’s almost like a scarlet letter,” Meltzer said. “When you are accused of this written threat to kill based on a flippant remark, where it’s not serious, and it’s jokingly said … everything gets blown out of proportion. Good kids’ lives are turned upside down.”
Defense attorneys Meltzer and Dobrinsky said children accused of making these threats are generally expelled. Meltzer said sometimes children have to go to alternative schools where their educational needs may not be met. Many end up in diversion programs, Dobrinsky said.
Sun Sentinel staff writer Anthony Man contributed to this report.
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