PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — A 12-year-old boy was arrested after a series of threats against a student and to also shoot up a Port St. Lucie school, police said.
Officers responded to a home on Tuesday night regarding online threats made from an unknown Instagram account to another minor regarding shooting the victim.
WATCH BELOW: 12-year-old arrested after social media threats
Their investigation revealed that the 12-year-old created an Instagram account to start spreading rumors about the victim as well as other school-related rumors at St. Lucie West K-8 in Port St. Lucie.
Police said the Instagram account was run by the 12-year-old, who attends St. Lucie West K-8 along with the victim.
Investigators said the account was created by the suspect after he and the victim had a falling out over the summer.
Police said the victim sent direct messages to the Instagram account — not knowing who the suspect was at the time — and asked the account holder to stop spreading the rumors online.
However, authorities said the suspect refused to comply and instead directly threatened the victim, as well as St. Lucie West K-8, and included photos of firearms.
Police said some of the direct quotes from the messages included:
- "762 at yo house and skl"
- "Ak 47 ar and everything"
- "Know you hear lockdown run"
- "Don't hide"
- "You got to slwk8"
- "Wait for oct 14th"
Police said officers notified school security and made them aware of the specific threats. Additional law enforcement officers were placed at the school.
As their investigation continued into the morning hours of Wednesday, police said detectives contacted Meta, the owner of Instagram, to help them identify the user who was making the threats.
Police were then able to positively identify the 12-year-old boy as the suspect.
With help from the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office school resource deputies and school security, detectives went to St. Lucie West K-8 where the 12-year-old was located and taken into custody.
Police said the suspect's cellphone was located and confirmed to have the phone number associated with the Instagram account from which the threats were made.
The 12-year-old told police that the threats were meant as a prank and that the photos of the firearms were taken from other social media platforms.
Investigators said the boy did not have access to firearms, nor did his parents.
Port St. Lucie Sgt. Dominick Mesiti said any threat to a school is taken seriously.
"We want to make this unequivocally clear to both students, children and their parents, that these types of incidents will be thoroughly investigated, whether they're a prank or not. They will be vetted, and we will prosecute an arrest if we have probable cause to do so," Mesiti said.
The suspect was charged with one count of electronic threats to kill, do bodily injury or conduct an act of terrorism.
The 12-year-old was later taken to the Department of Juvenile Justice without incident.
