A 14-year-old Columbus North student has been charged with felony intimidation relating to a school threat.
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 in 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 court officials.
The 14-year-old is scheduled to appear at a 10:15 a.m. Dec. 12 court hearing in Bartholomew County Juvenile Court before Magistrate Heather Mollo, court officials said.
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.
