Former student’s phone tied to threat that locked down Beaufort school, police say
A former student from the Beaufort County School District is believed to be connected to the “non-credible” shooting threat that sent Whale Branch Middle School into lockdown earlier this month, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
On Oct. 6, a call to the school’s receptionist said, “I’m going to shoot up the school,” according to the police report.
In the hour that students were in lockdown, the police traced the call back to a former student’s residence in Beaufort and used the school district’s database to find the name of the student.
Police traced the threat to a phone belonging to a former student of Robert Smalls International Academy who now attends an unknown school in Georgia. Pinging the phone’s location revealed the call had been placed from Georgia.
Additional details about the former student’s role in the incident and potential charges were not being made public on Monday, according to Maj. Angela Viens, a spokesperson for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
