A 14-year-old Columbus North student charged with felony intimidation relating to a threat against Columbus North High School will be allowed to be home-schooled as his case continues.
The teen appeared with his parents before Bartholomew County Juvenile Court on Wednesday before Magistrate Heather Mollo, with the court accepting a deny plea from the teen in regards to a felony charge of intimidation.
The Bartholomew County Prosecutor’s office has charged the male teen with making threats to other students involving a weapon. However, no weapon was located and no injuries were reported in the Nov. 9 incident.
The juvenile, who lives on the northwest side of Columbus, spent about a week in secured detention at the Bartholomew County Youth Services Center and has since been released to his home on home detention and electronic monitoring.
He is not being allowed to return to North while his case is pending, according to school officials.
Mollo agreed to the family’s request to allow the juvenile to take online courses supervised at home by his parents as his case continues. That’s instead of continuing with day reporting, which required the teen to report to the Bartholomew County Youth Services Center for a structured school day there.
She ruled that electronic monitoring must continue for the teen, however.
The teen told Mollo that he wished to take the online courses, enabling him to keep up with his classmates and graduate on time — something that might not have been possible with the day reporting services offered.
“This is a serious offense and I need to view this request considering safety and supervision,” Mollo said.
While agreeing to the home schooling on Wednesday, Mollo said she would consider a possible stepdown from electronic monitoring to home supervision with specific rules at the January hearing.
The teen and his family were advised of his constitutional rights and potential penalties if the teen admits to the allegation or is found delinquent as a result of the allegation.
The teen was ordered to appear in juvenile court at 10 a.m. Jan. 2 to allow the defense to review evidence in the case.
The case is the seventh school threat incident that has been investigated by Bartholomew County deputies or Columbus police so far this year.
This case brings the number of school threats at Columbus North to two, along with two reported at Columbus East, two at Hauser High School in Hope and one at the Simon Youth Academy in Edinburgh.
All but two of them occurred within a week of the Feb. 14 school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people died.
The North case is the only felony case currently pending before the juvenile court, with the others either settled with an admission of guilt to misdemeanor charges or being moved to misdemeanor status by the court.
State law allows the media to cover cases of juveniles charged with offenses that would be felonies if committed by an adult. The Republic is not naming the juveniles who have been charged with felony intimidation, but has followed each case through the court system or until it was reduced to a misdemeanor and hearings were no longer open to the public.
