November 10, 2016
A 16-year-old Pennsylvania boy has been arrested after he allegedly threatened to shoot up his high school on a smartphone app in order to miss class.
Monroe County prosecutors said on Monday that police responded to East Stroudsburg High School South after being notified of threats posted on the app After School.
The messages read, “I’m shooting up 5th lunch” and “I’m shooting up the school tomorrow f*** everybody," according to prosecutors.
But students were only sending each other screenshots of the threats, not actual posts from the app.
When authorities contacted the developers of After School, they were told the original messages had been intercepted by a moderation system and were never actually posted.
That meant the only person who had access to the messages was the author and, therefore, the person who took the screenshots.
When that student was interviewed, he admitted to creating and circulating the threats, prosecutors said.
According to authorities, the boy's stated reason for sending the messages was so that the school would go into lockdown mode and he could miss English class.
The unidentified student has been charged with making terroristic threats, causing false alarms to public safety agencies and related counts.
