MIAMI _ Tensions are so high at schools in Miami-Dade following the mass shooting in Broward that school officials have gone as far as organizing robo calls to parents after dealing with more than 50 violent threats on social media in less than a day.
The robo calls emphasized that there will not only be legal consequences for students that initiate a threat, but disciplinary ones.
"(Miami-Dade County Public Schools) is reminding the public and students that a written threat to kill or harm is a felony, will not be tolerated and perpetrators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," said M-DCPS spokeswoman Daisy Gonzalez-Diego in a statement Friday. "As a district, we will continue to emphasize the importance of responsible social media use."
Miami-Dade Schools Police Chief Ian A. Moffett told the Miami Herald the department usually receives about one threat a week. However after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that killed 17 people on Wednesday, threats have skyrocketed to more than 50 in one day.
"We're getting people reposting threatening pictures that they saw and people posting specific threats to schools that talk harming others. Those threats have come in many forms. Some talk about explosives, while others have talked about duplicating what happened in Broward," Moffett told the Miami Herald.
Police say only one of the threats resulted in an arrest as of Friday afternoon _ a 13-year-old student at Miami Lakes Middle School. Three other threats are still under investigation, while the other were deemed "not credible."
"So far none of these threats appear to be credible or legitimate, but we do not take a chance. We investigate every single threat," said Alberto Carvalho, Miami-Dade County Public School superintendent, adding that all of the threats resulted in police involvement at the schools.
Some of the dozens of schools that received threats include Southwest Senior High, Ferguson High, Jorge Mas Canosa Middle School and W.R. Thomas Middle.
On Friday, Hialeah police saturated the area near Hialeah High School after getting a call about a suspicious person carrying a gun.
'Hialeah units also conducted a search of the near by areas and again did not observe nor locate any suspicious individuals," police spokesman Edward Rodriguez. "At no time was there a shooting or an active shooter."
Shortly after, the Miami Herald received a video that showed a school security guard standing on a rooftop at Ronald Reagan High School in Doral. The guard pretended to shoot students on the ground floor. Emails to school administrators from the Herald have yet to be returned.
On Thursday, a 12 year-old girl in Davie was arrested after she admitted to slipping a note under the assistant principal's door that said she would kill kids and teachers, police say. Shortly after, Hallandale High and Hallandale Beach schools "received threats of a shooting" in an Instagram post, which was ultimately a false alarm.
But the trend is far beyond a local one. School districts across the country are battling hoaxes across social media.
On Friday, a South Carolina high school student was arrested after posting a photo of himself holding a weapon on Snapchat. The caption? "Round two of Florida"
And then there are the the possibilities of legitimate threats.
Take the 18-year-old boy that was arrested in Everett, Washington for example.
A day before the Douglas High shooting, the teen was arrested after his grandmother found his journal. Inside? Entries detailing his plans to shoot his classmates his high school, police say. In his journal he mentioned how he planned on using a semiautomatic rifle and homemade explosives.
"Parents have responsibility to know what their children are doing," Moffett said. "They have the responsibility of being the chief law enforcement officer in their home before they have to come to us and other forms of government to provide them."
Anyone contemplating making such a threat should be aware they will likely be identified and this abominable behavior that exploits the tragic deaths of 17 innocent victims and preys on the fears left in the aftermath of their murders will result in the strongest possible consequences.
