A 15-year-old boy has been arrested on Long Island for stating in an online chat that he wanted to shoot people at his school.
The Lindenhurst student was chatting online with other students on Wednesday when he threatened to shoot people at Brennan High School in West Babylon, NBC News reported.
A 911 call alerted police to the threat, which the teen made after school hours. Suffolk County Police picked him up at 10:10 p.m.
The unidentified student was charged with making a threat of mass harm, News 12 Long Island reported. The teen was released into his parents’ custody on the misdemeanor charge and would be arraigned at Suffolk County Family Court at a later date, according to 1010 Wins.
On Thursday, the first day of class saw an increased police presence at Brennan High School, News 12 noted. Residents and parents expressed relief that a potential shooting had been averted.
“Thank God for the police. Thank God they paid attention,” Wyandanch resident Terri Ivory told the station. “We don’t want to wait until something happens. We want to nip it in the bud before it happens.”
The Brennan student’s threat dropped on the same day that 14-year-old Colt Gray shot up his high school in Georgia, killing two teachers and two students, and sending nine others to the hospital.
A sheriff’s report revealed Thursday that the suspect had been questioned more than a year earlier by an investigator from a neighboring county after receiving an FBI tip that Gray, then 13, “had possibly threatened to shoot up a middle school tomorrow.” The boy denied making the threats.
The FBI in Atlanta and the local sheriff’s office said they hadn’t compiled enough evidence to arrest Gray at the time, only issuing a warning to local schools for “continued monitoring” of the teen.