Three students at a public high school and a middle school in Florida have been arrested for posting multiple videos on social media simulating a mass shooting on campus with a toy gun while the school campus was undergoing an evacuation for a bomb threat.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office shared in a news release that police have arrested three students from two different local public schools for sharing disturbing videos on TikTok depicting a mass school shooting.
Police arrested three students for posting TikTok videos depicting a mass shooting at the local high school. (Fox 13 Tampa)
Law enforcement on Thursday arrested two teens from the Parrish Community High School in Florida. On Wednesday police arrested a student at nearby Buffalo Creek Middle School for a similar threatening video.
Local authorities learned about one of the TikTok videos through a Manatee County Crime Stoppers tip that the video was filmed during the bomb threat evacuation at the Parrish Community High School on Tuesday. The student was quickly identified by a School Resource deputy and arrested at the student’s home on Thursday morning.
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On Thursday, police received two anonymous tips about a second alarming TikTok video which depicted another similar mass shooting with a toy gun, also during the bomb threat evacuation on Tuesday. The third student who posted the latest video was on school grounds and immediately arrested on site. The high school student also admitted to making the video and is being charged with the second degree felony of making written or electronic threats to kill, do bodily injury, or conduct a mass shooting.
On Tuesday, Parrish Community High School students and staff members were evacuated during a bomb threat. (Fox 13 Tampa)
Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells shared the agencies’ commitment in tracking down those responsible for the repeated bomb threats and disturbing TikTok videos. (Fox 13 Tampa)
On Tuesday, students and staff were ushered out of Parrish Community High School after police received two bomb threats. Since February 1, school officials say they’ve received four bomb threats against the school that have not been credible.
During a new conference on Tuesday, officials with Manatee County Schools and the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office shared that law enforcement spent more than three hours working to clear the campus after evacuating the building. Bomb dogs from the nearby Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office also responded to assist on campus.
“The school administration as well as the partnership with the local sheriff’s department have taken those threats very seriously,” Manatee County schools Superintendent Cynthia Saunders said during the press conference. “It is unfortunate that these threats continue and that they disrupt education for so many.”
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Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells on Tuesday advised students to discuss with their children if they knew anything about the recurring bomb threat plaguing the high school.
The Parrish Community High School where two students were arrested after posting videos on TikTok threatening a mass shooting. (Fox 13 Tampa)
“I need for you to seriously sit down and talk to your children about making idle threats, any threats whatsoever,” Sheriff Wells said Tuesday. “When we find those that are responsible, we are going to put them in jail, they are going to be charged with a felony and that felony is going to stay with them for the rest of their life.”
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Deputies are still investigating and said additional arrests are possible.
