Beaufort Co. student charged with making school threat after weeks of statewide chaos
Following a lengthy series of school shooting threats across South Carolina and nationwide, a middle schooler from Beaufort is one of many children in the state charged with contributing to the weeks of fear and police precautions.
An incident report from the Beaufort Police Department says the unnamed juvenile was arrested on Sept. 13 after the student “made threats to cause harm” to Beaufort Middle School. School faculty advised law enforcement on Sept. 6 about the threat, which department spokesperson Lt. Lori Reeves said was not made online.
Reeves would not confirm whether the student attended Beaufort Middle School. As of Friday afternoon, the city’s police force had not arrested any other minors in relation to local school threats, she said.
The middle schooler is one of 21 juveniles across the Palmetto State charged in connection to the month’s wave of school threats, which came on the heels of the fatal Apalachee High School shooting in Barrow County, Georgia. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said it was aware of “over 60 threats targeting schools” throughout 23 counties since the day of the Georgia shooting, in which two students and two teachers were killed.
Many of the threats were shared between students “through social media and other digital messaging apps,” according to the Tuesday press release from SLED. Mark Keel, the agency’s chief, wrote that “school threats are not a joke” and that the offense comes with “serious consequences.”
The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, Bluffton Police Department and Port Royal Police Department had not charged any juveniles in connection with the weeks of threats, the three agencies confirmed Friday afternoon.
Two separate incidents came just days apart in the Port Royal area, bringing an increased police presence to Bridges Preparatory School and forcing a lockdown at the local YMCA after a threat was made to its preschool program. The YMCA incident was still under investigation, according to Capt. John Griffith of the PRPD.
Sheriff’s office spokesperson Sgt. Danny Allen said the majority of the reported threats began on social media, many in the form of “a screenshot of a screenshot of a screenshot” containing plans of an alleged attack. At Hilton Head Island High School, rumors swirled via Snapchat about a list containing names of students who would be targeted in a school shooting, although neither police nor the Beaufort County School District found evidence of the alleged list.
Although all local threats were found to be unsubstantiated — some even coming from out of the state — Allen said sheriff’s deputies had increased their presence on and around school campuses this week.
As of Friday afternoon, details of the charges brought against the Beaufort-area middle schooler were unclear. One South Carolina criminal statute classifies student threats as a misdemeanor, but Reeves of the Beaufort Police Department said state law contained “no specific offense code” that applied to this incident.
