Weston 12-year-old girl arrested for threat of Monday deadly school violence, BSO says
A Snapchat post that included a “death list” of Falcon Cove Middle School students who the threat said would be killed on Monday resulted in the arrest of a 12-year-old Weston girl, Broward Sheriff’s Office announced Sunday.
This isn’t the shooting threat made via text and email at Cypress Bay High School that kept Cypress Bay, Falcon Cove and the nearby elementary schools, Manatee Bay and Everglades, on lockdown much of Friday. That lockdown was lifted around 2 p.m.
BSO said it learned of this threat Friday night from a Falcon Cove student and parent who saw it on Snapchat.
“The threat included a death list with student names from Falcon Cove Middle School,” BSO wrote in its announcement of the arrest. “Another threat was posted to the social media site later Friday afternoon that indicated the students were not safe and that they would be killed on Monday, Dec. 9.”
Before the night was out, BSO said it had tracked the threats to a Falcon Cove student who admitted she made the posts. She is charged with two counts of a written threat to kill and false reporting concerning a firearm.
A Facebook post of a screenshot of a screenshot of a screenshot of the post shows this message: “didn’t get to shoot anybody up today ur still never save from me monday ur dead.”
Falcon Cove parents in a Weston Facebook group in which that screenshot was posted debated whether or not to keep their kids home Monday.
“Who has been at least thinking about homeschooling? I don’t even known how it works, but I think of it daily,” wrote a parent who later posted she knew three people killed in the 2018 mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
“Mine is going,” another parent wrote. “The girl was arrested and the incident on Friday was at the high school. I won’t put my daughter in harm’s way, but she can’t live in fear, either.”
That parent and others worried about the psychological damage and anxieties to students and faculty created by repeated threats and lockdowns.
“We’ve decided to let my son stay home but because we don’t think he would be safe at school but because we (he) know that today will not be a “normal day” at school,” a parent posted Monday morning. “With all the extra police, counselors and kids still talking about what happened last week. My son said it best, “I don’t want to be bombarded with more of last week and today will be that.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2019 at 4:07 PM.
