A 16-year-old local juvenile accused of making school threats against Columbus East High School in February will continue to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet until his next court hearing.
The juvenile appeared before Bartholomew Juvenile Court Magistrate Heather Mollo on Wednesday for a status hearing on whether electronic monitoring would continue, or at the family’s request, the level of monitoring be lowered to home monitoring.
Mollo ruled to continue the electronic monitoring after consulting with representatives from the Bartholomew County prosecutor’s office and juvenile probation, who indicated they felt it should continue.
The incident in which the threats were alleged to have happened began early in the school day Feb. 21 when East students moving large items in a hallway accidentally hit a fire alarm box, activating the alarm, school officials said. East students evacuated and began taking photos and videos outside, which they shared on social media.
The former East student is accused of sending a response back to one or more current East students via social media making a threat of violence, court records state. He also is accused of sending a photo of himself holding a firearm, police said. Police identified the juvenile from the photo and arrested him the same day, taking him to the Bartholomew County Youth Services Center.
The prosecutor’s office had sought to waive the juvenile to adult court on the two felony intimidation charges he faces, but Mollo ruled against that request in May.
Juvenile probation officials reported the juvenile had failed one drug screen April 30, testing positive for THC, which indicates smoking marijuana, and self-admitted to doing it again before a June 6 drug test was scheduled.
The juvenile and his mother told Mollo that smoking marijuana is something the teen does to alleviate chronic pain.
Mollo reminded the juvenile that one of the rules of his electronic monitoring was that drug use was prohibited.
“Rules are rules,” she said to the juvenile before he left the courtroom. “You seem to have shrugged that (marijuana use) off and if you would ignore those rules, what rules would you ignore if I stepped you down to lower monitoring?”
Mollo said while she had a responsibility to work with the juvenile and his family, she also had a responsibility to community safety.
The juvenile’s mother said she was working with medical resources to find resources for pain management.
The judge did grant a family request to allow the juvenile to travel with his family to Tennessee for a family trip, waiving electronic monitoring during the time period requested by the family. However, at the conclusion of the trip, the electronic monitoring will resume, Mollo said.
The juvenile is due back in juvenile court at 10:15 a.m. July 18 for a status hearing on the case. A fact-finding hearing for the juvenile, the equivalent of a trial in adult court, is set for 9 a.m. Aug. 24.
