September 19, 2024
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Around the country, communities are being battered by a wave of school shooting threats, sparking emergency notifications, urgent group chats and heightened fears among parents that their child’s school could be the next Parkland or Sandy Hook or Uvalde — or any other town hit by mass shootings.
On Florida's Atlantic coast, Sheriff Mike Chitwood of Volusia County said he got some of these same notifications after he walked his grandchildren to school this week.
“It just stuck with me because my cell phone was going off telling me about the other threats. Thinking to myself, how many parents in this country have done just what I just did,” Chitwood said, “and they never, ever, ever get to hold their loved one again.”
Fed up with school shooting threats in his community, Chitwood pledged to publicly identify students who make such threats.
On Monday, he posted the name and mugshot of an 11-year-old boy arrested for allegedly threatening to carry out a shooting at a middle school in his county. The decision swiftly drew praise and criticism.
A video posted by Chitwood online shows airsoft guns, pistols, fake ammunition, knives and swords that investigators say the boy gathered. The footage later cuts to an officer leading the handcuffed boy from a squad car before he's locked into an empty cell. The boy’s face is frequently visible in the video, which already has gained hundreds of thousands of social media views.
Then on Wednesday, Chitwood posted a message online: “Two more students are in custody following a school shooting threat” and adding of the teens, "We will introduce you to these two in the very near future.”
The AP generally does not identify anyone under 18 accused of a crime or transmit images that would reveal their identity.
Chitwood this week told The Associated Press he doesn't know if publicly shaming accused juveniles will be effective. But he had to act to get through to students and their parents.
Since the school year started a few weeks ago in Volusia County, Chitwood said, his office has reported more than 280 school threats compared to 352 in all of last year.
"Something has to be done," Chitwood said. “Where are the parents?”
Under Florida law, juvenile court records are generally confidential and exempt from public release — unless the child is charged with a felony, as in this case.
Chitwood has a reputation of being a tough-talking figure and maintains he is within his rights to identify the boy.
“I’m not worried about the 2% that might get handcuffed that somebody might get offended about," Chitwood said. "I’m worried about the other 98% that are trying to go to school and live their normal lives not in fear to get an education.”
Among those applauding the sheriff’s actions is Max Schachter, whose son Alex was murdered along with 16 others in a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
“We had a culture of complacency that led to the Parkland school shooting. And we can't be complacent anymore,” Schachter told AP. “We should be holding the individuals that perpetrate these threats and become mass shooters to the highest extent of the law. And ultimately we should be holding their parents responsible."
Chitwood has said he's investigating whether parents of kids who make threats can be held financially or criminally liable.
The first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting — Jennifer and James Crumbley — were sentenced in April to at least 10 years in prison as a Michigan judge lamented missed opportunities that could have prevented their teenage son Ethan from possessing a gun and killing four students in 2021. The parents were convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier in the year.
In Winder, Georgia, prosecutors have filed charges against the father of a 14-year-old boy accused of killing two students and two teachers in a recent high school shooting.
