WR Edelman helps sniff out shooting threat
New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman and an observant social media user helped prevent a school shooting after a threat appeared in a comment on Edelman’s Instagram account last month, according to an article published Wednesday by the New York Times.
Edelman was in Texas visiting former teammate Danny Amendola late last month when he received a direct message on his Instagram account.
“Dude, there is a kid in your comment section says he s going to shoot up a school, i think you should alert the authority,” the messenger wrote.
Edelman said he thought of the 17 people who were killed in the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
“With the emotions of what happened, and I have a kid now, I said, ‘Holy Toledo, what is going on?’ ” Edelman said in an interview with the Times.
He quickly notified his assistant in Boston, Shannen Moen, who looked through the hundreds of comments that followed Edelman’s Instagram post March 25 — the day after hundreds of thousands of people marched in Washington, D.C., to call for an end to gun violence.
“I’m going to shoot my school up watch the news,” the comment read.
Moen called the police, who then traced the comment to an address in Port Huron, Mich. When Port Huron police arrived at the address, they found a 14-yearold boy — who they said admitted to making the threat — and two rifles belonging to his mother, the
Times reported.
The Times also reported the boy was taken to a juvenile-detention center and was charged with making a false report of a threat of terrorism.
Edelman deflected any praise he received to the Instagram user who sent the private message.
“Thankfully, this kid said something,” Edelman said. “We’re going to send him something, a care package, just for his work. He’s the real hero.”