A local magistrate says she wanted to give “the benefit of the doubt” to a 14-year-old former Columbus North High School student accused of felony intimidation relating to a school threat.
The male teen was charged with making threats on social media to other students that involved a weapon. However, no weapon was located and no injuries were reported in the Nov. 9 incident, police said.
During a disposition hearing Wednesday, Bartholomew County Juvenile Magistrate Heather Mollo ruled the teen must:
Enroll in victim impact exercises, where offenders become aware of the impact of crime on victims and entire communities.
Be subject to a suspended 90-day period of secure detention.
Be placed on six months of probation (with Jan. 16 as the starting date)
Perform 32 hours of community service.
Pay $326 in various fees and court costs, as well as a $10 per month probation fee.
Mollo also removed the student from electronic monitoring, a status he has been on for more than 100 days.
Although the boy’s parents called the threats “jokes,” both the mother and father agreed their son had committed an extremely serious offense. They promised the magistrate to keep their son under close supervision.
No motive was given for the threats, but in earlier court hearings Molo said the threats seemed to be “targeted to a particular race.”
During the hearing, Mollo explained that the student had gotten into a heated discussion on social media about a game when “he started popping off” by making the threats.
Mollo described the posts as impulsive, showing a temporary adolescent lapse of judgement that seemed out of character for the teen’s normal behavior.
The teen was described as a low risk for being a repeat offender, Bartholomew County Deputy Prosecutor Kim Sexton said.
The boy was described by house arrest officer Lisa Gray as “one of the most polite and respectful young people she has encountered, along with his parents.”
The juvenile understands the seriousness of his act and has expressed genuine remorse, according to Sexton and juvenile probation officer Hillari Yentz. The women agreed the boy deserves a break, since this was his first offense.
The juvenile has been taking online courses supervised at home by his parents, rather than reporting to the Bartholomew County Youth Services Center for a structured school day there.
There was no discussion Wednesday about letting the boy return to Columbus North, but the teen told Mollo his full-time online schooling should enable him to keep up with his classmates and graduate on time.
Mollo says she is not concerned that the teen will become a repeat offender. In fact, the magistrate described him as a young man who normally displays a pretty good moral compass and does not appear to pose a risk to either his school or his community.
The case was the seventh school threat incident investigated in Bartholomew County during 2018. Each of the other cases was were either settled with an admission of guilt to lesser misdemeanor charges, or moved to misdemeanor status by the court and prosecutors.
This incident brought the number of school threats last year 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 the incidents occurred within a week of the Feb. 14, 2018 school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people died.
