‘All them teachers can die’
Police: 6th-grade girl posted threats on Instagram
DAVIE A 12-year-old girl, claiming to have guns, made nearly a dozen threats against teachers and students at Nova High School and Nova Middle School on Instagram, police said Monday.
The sixth-grader at Nova Middle School was taken into custody after tips about the threats began pouring in to Davie police and the Broward Sheriff ’s Office.
The eleven messages were laced with profanity and threatened specific people, apparently teachers and students at the two schools in the 3600 block of College Avenue.
“All them teachers can die, that’s why I got a gun to kill yall,” said one of the messages, followed by “#novamiddleschool,” according to a police report released Monday morning.
Another message read in part, “Pulling out a gun im so happy take me to jail.” Said another: “WHO READY TO DIE.”
One of the messages displayed a picture of five handguns, the report said, and included the words “LOOK AT MY GUNS.”
The threat is the latest in a rising number since the mass shooting in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
A week ago, four Nova schools — the high school, the middle school, Nova Blanche Foreman Elementary and Nova Eisenhower Elementary — were put on lockdown and police swarmed to the joint campus after someone made a telephone call and threatened to shoot up the schools.
Police later said that John F. Kennedy Middle School in North Miami Beach and Cocoa These dogs are among 44 canines and four felines rescued from a pet shelter in Alabama decimated by Hurricane Michael. The animals arrived at the Humane Society of Broward County on Monday afternoon.
High School in Central Florida were included in that threat.
A 15-year-old boy who police said is intellectually disabled has been accused of making those threats, which were deemed not credible, according to police.
Police agencies in South Florida and elsewhere have responded more aggressively to threats since a former student in Parkland killed 17 people and wounded 17 more on Valentine’s Day. The shooter there also made threats on social media, but the FBI and Sheriff’s Office failed to act on them.
Last spring, Florida lawmakers passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
School Public Safety Act. The law, which went into effect with the beginning of the school year, makes it illegal to post threats on social media about conducting a mass shooting or engaging in a terrorist attack.
Most of those arrested, even if the threat is a hoax, are charged with a seconddegree felony.
In the latest case, police made a high-priority request to administrators at Facebook, which owns Instagram, to get the computer address of the poster and eventually determine where she lives, Davie police said.
When questioned, the girl first denied making the threats but later claimed they were a prank and she was put up to them, police said.
She was taken into custody and transferred to juvenile
Broward.
Davie police outlined the threats in a Twitter posting before dawn Monday. They indicated that it was safe for students to return to school and that police would be present.
Arriving for school Monday morning, Nova High School junior Jensey Melo said he wasn’t concerned about the threat, which was making the rounds on social media.
“I heard on Instagram last night that a middle school student was going to shoot up the school. I didn’t think much of it,” Jensey said. “The pictures they posted of the guns weren’t even real pictures.”
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Staff photographer Cavaretta contributed to report.
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