New Jersey authorities said three juveniles were in custody Monday after multiple school districts were targeted by online threats, adding to a wave of incidents involving campuses across the country following last week's deadly school shooting in Georgia.
Harrison Township police said a 15-year-old from Mullica Hill, one juvenile from Woodbury and another from Glassboro were arrested after being linked to “several social media posts referencing threats” to schools in Gloucester and Camden counties in the southern part of New Jersey.
Philadelphia NBC affiliate WCAU reported that the threats originated from a TikTok post where a user said five local schools were going to be “shot up.”
Local authorities didn't share what charges the young suspects might be facing.
Officials with the Deptford Township School District and the neighboring Woodbury City Schools decided to close their schools Monday in response to the online post.
“While we do not believe the threat to be credible, we are exercising extreme caution to ensure the safety of our students, staff and families,” Woodbury City Schools Superintendent Andrew Bell said in an announcement.
Haddon Heights School District and Glassboro Public Schools opted to keep their doors open Monday with an increased police presence on school grounds.
A deluge of threats has been directed at schools throughout the country in the wake of a deadly rampage at a Georgia high school that left two students and two teachers dead.
Two teens in Florida — a 14-year-old girl in Broward County and a 13-year-old boy in Madison County — were arrested over the weekend after they were tied to social media threats against schools in their area.
A school district near Cincinnati, Ohio, closed for a day last week after it was listed in a social media post in which a user threatened to carry out a school shooting.
Police in Tucson, Arizona, said they arrested two teens Friday in connection to threats made against four schools.
“The copycats, that’s got to stop. That’s not helpful for anything,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said, according to local CBS affiliate KOLD-TV.
But Georgia in particular has seen a surge in threats of violence.
Over a dozen students between the ages 12 and 17 were arrested on threats charges across the state, according to Atlanta’s local Fox affiliate WAGA-TV.
That includes a 15-year-old in Jackson County who told other students that he "was planning on finishing the job to shoot another school" hours after the Windsor shooting, according to local police.
Authorities said a 12-year-old boy from Clarke County posted names of schools and images of guns on social media, and a 13-year-old boy from Brooks County threatened to shoot up a middle school after blasting a text message over the school’s internal system.
DeKalb County, one of the state’s most populous counties and located in metropolitan Atlanta, said a 14-year-old student was arrested and a 12-year-old student was issued a summons after they made their own threats.
"Unfortunately, some have taken advantage of this grief to spread fear through threatening social media posts targeting several schools in DeKalb County and across metro Atlanta,” Superintendent Devon Horton said in a letter to parents Friday, per WAGA. “While we have received numerous reports of threatening social media posts, no credible threats have been found against any DCSD schools.
Two Georgia middle school students were accused of bringing guns to campus — one in Thomas County and the other in Henry County — and Monroe County authorities said Chris Cooper, 26, was charged with making school shooting threats online.
Law enforcement officials in Georgia arrested and charged Colt Gray, 14, as an adult following Wednesday’s mass shooting at Apalachee High School. Four were killed and nine others wounded at the campus located roughly an hour northeast of Atlanta.
The boy’s father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, was also charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and child cruelty afterward.
Parents are increasingly being held liable for their children’s criminal conduct.
Jennifer and James Crumbley were sentenced to 10 years behind bars this spring after their son, Ethan Crumbley, shot and killed four people during a 2021 school shooting in Michigan.
The Crumbleys were convicted of involuntary manslaughter on grounds that they failed to secure the gun their son used at Oxford High School and ignored other signs of mental distress.
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