2 Warren boys held in school threat cases
Two Warren County boys were ordered to remain in detention for at least a week in connection with separate school threat cases.
Two Warren County boys were ordered to remain in detention for at least a week in connection with separate school threat cases last week at Lebanon and Little Miami high schools, as the rest of the nation was coming to terms with the latest in a series of deadly school shootings.
“The whole world is on edge now and you just added fuel to it,” Judge Joe Kirby said during the second of two hearings Friday in Warren County Juvenile Court.
On Tuesday, Kirby flashed a newspaper headline reporting that more than 400 people had been shot in over 200 school shootings before ordering a Turtlecreek Twp. boy, 17, who has already served four days in detention since he surrendered to authorities on Friday, to remain in detention while undergoing an assessment.
He is charged with inducing panic by texting, “THAT’S IT IM GONNA SHOOT UP A SCHOOL I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE” to friends Feb. 15.
An hour later, the judge again invoked the school shooting crisis and the recent tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School outside of Miami, in deciding to hold a 14-year-old Hamilton Twp. boy who admitted to inducing panic, making false alarms and intimidation of a witness after a Snapchat of him holding a realistic toy gun to a friend’s head left other students worried he would bring a gun to school at Little Miami High School.
“Don’t fall asleep around your friends,” the boy said he wrote beneath the picture. He also admitted posting another message threatening to beat up witnesses in the case.
Kirby also ordered this boy to undergo an assessment before being released or sentenced.
Both incidents resulted in the accused boy’s arrest Friday, the day after 17 people were killed and 15 more hospitalized after the shooting at the Parkland Fla. high school.
The Lebanon case was first reported Friday night by Lebanon City Schools Superintendent Todd Yohey.
“Students need to realize that there is no such thing anymore as an empty threat; no jokes, no kidding around, no ‘I didn’t mean it,’ ” Yohey said in the statement.
“The people who view your posts or overhear you make threats are going to report you. In Warren County, that likely means felony charges. Parents need to have serious conversations with their children about the consequences of making threats in today’s society,” he said in a statement.
Both boys are to return to court Feb. 28.