A 16-year-old male Columbus North High School student was taken into custody the night before school started, accused of making a social media threat that included a photo of what appeared to be a weapon.
The threat, sent to a couple of classmates the night of Aug. 7, included a message about not coming to school the next day, the first day of school, Bartholomew County Prosecutor Bill Nash said.
An unidentified student told Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. officials about the threat that night, and information was given to the Columbus Police Department and emergency agencies, said Larry Perkinson, BCSC’s employee and student assistance coordinator.
Two detectives were sent to the student’s home the night of Aug. 7 and determined the weapon that appeared in the social media post was a pellet gun, said Lt. Matt Harris, Columbus Police Department spokesman. The officers also determined there were no other firearms in the home.
The pellet gun did not have a visible red cap signifying it as similar to a BB gun, due to the angle of the photo, Harris said. Police identify Airsoft or pellet guns, which police officers use in training, by the red tip.
The male juvenile was apologetic and told officers he was only joking when he sent the online message to several of his friends, Harris said. The detectives confiscated the pellet gun and the juvenile was taken into custody and transported to the Bartholomew County Youth Services Center.
The 16-year-old is facing a Class A misdemeanor allegation of intimidation in a juvenile delinquency petition filed with Bartholomew County Juvenile Court, court officials said. While felony cases involving juveniles are open to the public, misdemeanor cases are not, according to Indiana law.
BCSC has initiated disciplinary procedures in regard to the North student, suspending him pending a recommendation for expulsion, Perkinson said.
The school did not notify North families about the incident as it was determined not to be a credible threat and was taken care of prior to the start of school, he said.
Parent reaction
Parent Stephanie Studley, who attended Monday’s BCSC board meeting, said she was furious that Superintendent Jim Roberts and BCSC school board members did not mention the incident during Monday’s school board meeting, which was dominated by discussions about the district’s new safety and security plan.
“Parents and caregivers have a right to know what environment we are sending our children into,” she said.
During Monday’s meeting, Studley called for having a single-entry point for visitors to schools, locking all other doors and issuing electronically issued ID badges as strategies in keeping students from harm. Roberts responded that all of those steps are either already in place or will be implemented over the next nine weeks.
BCSC has spent about $70,000 this year on security changes such as hardware and software, door locks and cameras. That is on top of $2 million that has been spent since 2013, Roberts said.
Harris acknowledged that the student who reported the social media threat was doing what police have asked them to do — see something, say something — by reporting it to North staff members who then reported it to law enforcement.
“Each situation is different,” Harris said when asked why the incident wasn’t reported to the general public after it happened.
“We had a little more feeling of closure in this incident, and there were no questions unanswered,” he said. “We recovered the weapon in this incident and there were no other weapons in the home. And we received cooperation from the family.”
Incident chronology
The threat is the sixth incident this calendar year involving high schools in Bartholomew County, including two at Columbus East High School, two at Hauser High School and one at the Simon Youth Academy at Edinburgh Premium Outlets.
Those threats occurred Feb. 20-21, within a week of the Feb. 14 school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people died.
Two threats at Hauser High School, one on Feb. 20 and another on Feb. 21, were handled internally by school officials.
On Feb. 20, a Columbus East male student was arrested by Columbus police after students told authorities the juvenile had made a social media threat on SnapChat saying the school would be “shot up” in two days. The student was initially charged with felony intimidation in juvenile court, a charge that was later lowered to a misdemeanor.
On Feb. 21, a threat allegedly occurred at East when students moving large items in a hallway accidentally hit a fire alarm box, activating an alarm. East students outside the building began taking videos and photos during the evacuation, which they shared on social media. A former East male student is accused of sending a response back to one of the students via social media, making a threat of violence, including sending a photo of himself holding a firearm. Columbus police identified the juvenile and he was accused of Level 6 felony intimidation, court records state. His next hearing in juvenile court is a fact-finding hearing Aug. 24 at the Bartholomew County Courthouse.
Edinburgh Police arrested a 16-year-old male student at Simon Youth Academy on Feb. 21 after he was accused of drawing a sketch depicting a shooting scene and showing it to some of his classmates. The drawing contained sketches of a classroom, a semi-automatic pistol and bodies identified by student and teacher names. Juvenile Magistrate Heather Mollo presided over a fact-finding hearing in the juvenile’s case July 27 and a ruling is pending.
