As threats to schools go up, police are cracking down

One student warned on social media that he had planted explosives in the parking lot of his West Boca high school.

Another student made a threat on YouTube about shooting up his Coral Springs campus.

And Miami-Dade public schools at one point got up to 50 threats a day, including one that led to the arrest of a 13-year-old Miami Lakes Middle School student.

Authorities have been scouring social media for threats against schools since the mass shooting Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland. And when they find those responsible, they are taking them to court.

“Miami-Dade Schools Police made it clear that it will have zero tolerance for any activity that disrupts the peace of mind of our students, employees and parents,”

said spokesman Tony Cotarelo.

Educational leaders say each threat, even if a suspected hoax, is investigated and taken seriously. After so many red flags were missed with the Parkland school shooter, officials have asked students and their parents to have a heightened sense of awareness and report all threats, even anonymously.

Cotarelo said reports from the community and a crackdown by law enforcement have dramatically cut a post-Parkland wave of threats.

Statistics and comparisons to threats made in prior years are not readily available, but experts say copycats since Parkland may have caused a spike.

On May 30, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies arrested an 18-year-old student at Olympic Heights High, west of Boca Raton, who admitted to making a threat on Snapchat.

Jose Calderon, who lives west of Delray Beach, said he was on the campus the previous morning when he “thought it would be funny” to use his iPhone to take a photo of the school parking lot and post the caption, “I’ve strapped c4 to every car in the student parking lot if you try to leave early it will detonate.”

“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” Calderon said after deputies showed up at his home.

But he was charged with “written threats to kill or do bodily injury” and “threat to throw, place project or discharge a destructive device.” Each count is a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in state prison.

Calderon is free under the terms of a $50,000 bond; his case is pending.

David Puy, 19, also from West Delray, is a former student at Spanish River High in Boca Raton. He admitted to investigators he had posted a message on Snapchat that read: “On my way School shooter.”

Puy said he “had no intentions of committing violence and admitted he ‘wasn’t thinking’ when he posted it,” an arrest report said.

Puy, who lives with his parents and works as a laborer for a construction company, has been ordered to remain on house arrest under the terms of a $50,000 bond while his felony case is pending.

Because they both were at least 18 years old, they face prosecution in adult courts. But the vast majority of school threats come from juveniles, so those cases will result in lesser punishments.

Among the Broward incidents with reported arrests: a 15-year-old Lauderhill boy who posted on Instagram about killing people at several schools; a 17-year-old girl who threatened on Snapchat “to shoot up” Piper High in Sunrise; and an 11-year-old Nova Middle School student in Davie who wrote a threatening note to an assistant principal.

A 17-year-old Tamarac boy was charged in April with making a threat against J.P. Taravella High School in Coral Springs.

According to a police report, the youth wrote, “I want to be a professional school shooter ... I’M LEGIT NOT JOKING AROUND! SPREAD MY MESSAGE!!!”

The juvenile court judge presiding over the case said he received reports that the teen appeared to be seeking attention. The judge also warned the defendant he could be jailed for up to three years if found guilty. The case remains pending.

In a May 22 letter to students, Palm Beach Schools Superintendent Donald Fennoy wrote, “I am counting on you to tell someone when you hear that there is a weapon on campus, when you might know who has threatened your school on social media or on a bathroom wall, or when someone talks, even as a joke, about hurting themselves or someone else.”

Fennoy encouraged students to use a smartphone app called “StudentProtect,” which enables immediate, 911-type emergency notifications to police.

Last month, a Palm Beach County Grand Jury report examining school safety issues predicted “this cellular app should make great strides in empowering students in the reporting of potential threatening or suspicious activity and, hopefully, in preventing school attacks.”

But the same report quoted a security expert who found the existing “See Something, Say Something” campaign had weaknesses because students complained “the information they provide is treated as unreliable or not important.”

Puy

Calderon