11-year-old Henrico boy faces 43 charges related to 21 bomb threats made against Florida schools

An 11-year-old Henrico boy faces 43 charges related to a series of bomb threats made against several schools in Flagler County, Florida during a nine-day period in late May. Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly made the announcement during a press conference July 25.

The child was taken into custody July 18 at his family’s home in Henrico following a 10-week investigation by the Flagler Sheriff’s Office and is being held in a juvenile detention facility in Virginia. Though the sheriff’s office named him, the Citizen is not because he has not yet been charged as an adult.

The boy faces 14 felony counts of false report concerning the planting of a bomb, 14 felony counts of unlawful use of a two-way communication device, one felony count of tampering with physical evidence, and 14 misdemeanor counts of disrupting a school function. Between May 14 and May 22, 21 bomb threats were made against five schools in Flagler County through calls placed to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Communications Center, the Volusia Sheriff’s Office Communications Center and the Lincoln Emergency Communications Center in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In each, the caller made claims that a bomb or bombs had been placed; threatened to commit a mass shooting; or stated that they had just shot a teacher, student, or multiple people.

During Thursday’s press conference, the Flagler Sheriff’s Office played one of the calls, during which the caller said “I just shot my teacher In the head,” according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

After a dispatcher asked the caller which school he was at, the caller said Flagler Palm Coast High School and responded “Yeah, I think my teacher is dead,” also claiming to have an “assault rifle 15” and a “flare stick.”

“It’s in my hand,” he said, according to the newspaper. “And If you don’t come quickly we will all die.”

The Henrico County Police Division helped the Volusia Sheriff’s Office in executing a search warrant at the boy’s home, where they found he had written the swatting type calls made towards the schools.

Detectives interviewed the boy and members of his family and said that he admitted to placing the swatting type calls made towards Flagler County schools, as well as a threat made to the Maryland State House. He said that he used methods he had learned online in an attempt to circumvent law enforcement and hide his identity and that he devised the script he used for his calls and acted alone.

Following the interview, detectives contacted the National Center for Audio and Video Forensics to conduct a voice pattern analysis comparing audio from the phone calls to the interview. David Notowitz, an audio forensic expert and founder of NCAVF, verified that the voices matched.

The search of the boy’s home uncovered evidence that he had physically removed the hard drive from his laptop, according to the Flagler Sheriff’s Office. That hard drive was later found to contain evidence that he had made similar calls throughout Florida and the country, officials said.

“With school coming up in less than a month, I know that the status of this investigation was on the forefront of our community’s mind, which is why our detectives never stopped working to find the person responsible for terrorizing our students, parents, teachers, and our community,” said Staly. “This kid’s behavior was escalating and becoming more dangerous.

Officials in Flagler County previously had arrested a 13-year old boy May 17 who had made a bomb threat in the county in what they determined to be a copycat incident.