PBSO: Boy calls Glades Academy his ‘first target’
Teen faces charge, mental evaluation after Snapchat post.
Investigators said a 13-year-old boy posted on Snapchat that he might be the next school shooter and named his former Pahokeearea school as his “first target.”
The alleged threat came just a month after a former student shot a nd killed 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
“I might be da next school shooter who knows Glades Academy will be my 1st target,” the teen wrote, according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office report.
The teen, whom The Palm Beach Post is not naming because his case is in juvenile court at this time, faces one count of written threats to kill or do bodily harm. In court Tuesday, Judge James Martz ordered the teen to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
On Monday, sheriff ’s deputies responded to Glades Academy, on State Road 15 southeast of the city, to reports of a threat. The principal of the public charter school, which offers classes from kindergarten through eighth grade, said she had received information about the threatening Snapchat message. Deputies went to the boy’s home and spoke with him and his parents.
The teen, who authorities said now attends Pahokee Middle School, said several of his friends have his login information for the social media app and use it from time to time, according to the report. He said he thought a friend who was in Georgia sent the threatening message Monday.
Deputies asked him if that friend ever went to Glades Academy, and he said the friend had not. Asked if the teen ever had issues at the school while he was a student there, he said he did with one boy, but that the issue was resolved and they no longer spoke.
When pressed later about why another friend who never went to Glades Academy would post such a message, the teen said he posted the message, but he “did not mean any harm and was joking around,” according to the report.
The 13-year-old’s parents said they did not have any firearms in the home, and when deputies checked the boy’s room, there were no weapons, the report said.