A 13-year-old boy at Holly Hill School became the 29th student charged by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office with making a threat at a school after he was accused of threatening to shoot a classmate, according to a press release.
The student was accused of making the threat on Tuesday at the K-8 school, but it was not reported to the school resource deputy until Wednesday morning.
A teacher wrote a referral saying the student had “threatened to ‘shoot’ a girl if she wrote his name on something, the release said.
The student was arrested and charged with threatening to discharge a destructive device, a felony. He was transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice on Wednesday afternoon.
The 13-year-old was the 29th student charged by the Sheriff’s Office since the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland by a former student armed with an assault-style rifle, according to reports.
Since that mass shooting, Sheriff Mike Chitwood and School Superintendent Tom Russell have repeatedly warned students or anyone not to make any threats about guns at school or on social media, the release said.
“Despite warnings, students have continued to make threats, inciting fear at school,” the release said.
Chitwood has warned that the students charged or their families would have to repay the Sheriff’s Office for the cost of investigating and prosecuting each incident – at least $1,032, the release said.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Chitwood said in according to a statement in the release. “Parents, you wouldn’t allow your kids to stand up in a movie theater and yell ‘FIRE!’ Or fly on an airplane at 30,000 feet and yell ‘HIJACK!’ Why is this OK? It’s not OK and we will continue to hold students, and parents, accountable.”