Student arrested as Beaufort Co. schools report shooting threats at 7 campuses
A minor has been arrested after school officials found graffiti threatening a school shooting at H.E. McCracken Middle School, Bluffton Police Department announced Friday.
The minor, who was not named due to age, was charged with making student threats and malicious injury to property at the school.
The student is being processed through the family courts system, Bluffton Police Chief Stephenie Price said at a Friday press conference.
Similar graffiti was found at three other schools in the county — Beaufort Middle, Beaufort High and Bluffton Middle — this week, along with a social media post warning students at Beaufort High, Whale Branch Middle and Whale Branch Early College High to not come to school on Monday.
And on Friday afternoon, Hilton Head Island High School was placed on lockdown after “a student overheard conversation among other students about possible gun violence,” according to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Bob Bromage.
Other schools in the Hilton Head complex — Hilton Head Island Middle, Elementary, Early Childhood Center and School for the Creative Arts — were placed on a modified lockdown as a precaution, Beaufort County School District spokesperson Candace Bruder said. During a modified lockdown, students continue to change classes throughout the day, but they are more closely monitored and outdoor activities are suspended.
Bluffton Police are still investigating the graffiti at Bluffton Middle School, Price said. North of the Broad River, Beaufort Police Department is investigating the threats at Beaufort Middle and High Schools, according to department spokesperson George Erdel.
What are the threats?
At H.E. McCracken, the graffiti said, “Someone is going to shoot up the school on the 10th.” It was found Wednesday.
At Beaufort High, there were two messages: One on Wednesday read, “Don’t come to skool on the 13th,” and one on Thursday read, “Warning!!! Dec. 13th DO NOT Come to School. There will be 6 kids that will shoot up the school. You have been warned.”
Two more messages were found Thursday afternoon at Bluffton Middle and Beaufort Middle, with the Bluffton message saying “Alert school shooting-7th” and the Beaufort message reading “Don’t come to school on the 10th if you wanna get shot.”
And Beaufort County School District sent out a notice Friday afternoon directed at Beaufort Middle, Whale Branch Middle and Whale Branch Early College High, which read “wbms, wbhs, bms, and others I repeat do not go to school on the 13th, next Monday somebody is planning on shooting up the schools. Gotta email saying that somebody is planning on shooting the schools up.”
Similar messages have been reported in Georgia, Illinois, West Virginia, Texas and Kentucky schools in the past week, following a Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan that left four dead.
Each school with a threat has extra police officers on hand, according to messages sent out to parents by principals.
At least five weapons have been reported in Beaufort County schools this semester, including three firearms and a knife found in a Beaufort Elementary School bathroom earlier this week.
At Friday’s press conference, Superintendent Frank Rodriguez said the district has begun to deploy private security guards at its elementary schools. Those schools do not have assigned school resource officers through local police departments like middle and high schools.
The school board approved a contract with S & S Management Group LLC, doing business as GuardOne Security, to provide those guards in September; annually, it will cost the district about $950,000.
Rodriguez did not say Friday what schools guards have been assigned to, or how many guards are currently employed by the district.
This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 10:52 AM.