Son, father, charged in connection with school threat
NEW ORLEANS — A 14-year-old boy was charged with threatening violence at his school, and his father was jailed for refusing to turn his son in and threatening police, authorities said Monday.
Students at Lusher Charter School told school staff that the teen made the threats last Thursday, saying he was going to “shoot the school up on Friday,” Police Commander Shaun Ferguson said at a news conference. The school houses grades 6-12.
School officials called police, and investigators obtained a warrant to arrest the boy, but they were unable to find him, Ferguson said.
“We contacted the father in an attempt to have the kid meet with us,” he said, adding that the father at first said he would cooperate, but then declined. The father also said “something would happen” to any police officers who came onto his property, Ferguson said.
Police searched unsuccessfully for the teen and his father over the weekend. The search ended Monday morning when the teen’s mother turned her son in. The 52-year-old father turned himself in separately.
The son was being held at a juvenile facility, facing a charge of terrorizing, Ferguson said. The father was at the Orleans Parish jail on a variety of charges including being an accessory to terrorizing and threatening a public official, online records showed. Ferguson said the father also faced charges in connection with having a “small amount” of marijuana in a house where firearms were present.
Ferguson said it was unclear what motivated the threats, made on the fifth anniversary of Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, which left 20 first-graders and six of their educators dead.
The Associated Press does not generally identify juveniles accused of crimes. The AP is withholding the name of the father to protect the son’s identity.