A 12-year-old is facing 12 counts of terroristic threats after he allegedly made so many bomb threats that six Griffin-Spalding County, Georgia, schools issued evacuations.
FOX 5 reports that the sixth grade Rehoboth Road Middle School student is currently in police custody after using a cellphone and his school’s Wi-Fi system to send out bomb threats through Instagram. According to police, the boy hacked into another student’s Instagram account and posted the threats, even posting a threat to himself while posing as the other student, in an attempt to make himself look like a victim.
“He also included his own real Instagram account name in the thread where the threats were being generated so as he was sending the threats he was also receiving the threats under his real name to make it appear that he was also a victim,” Spalding County sheriff’s office spokesman Cpt. Dwayne Jones said.
The alleged bomb threats occured on two separate days, police said. The first threat happened on March 12, resulting in Spalding High School and Rehoboth Middle School issuing an evacuation of all students. On March 18, the threats happened again, and this time, students at a total of six schools were evacuated, including,
- Rehoboth Middle School
- Spalding High School
- Griffin High School
- Kennedy Road Middle School
- Cowan Road Middle Middle School
- Griffin Christian Academy
JUST IN: Spalding High School cleared, police still doing sweep of Rehoboth Road Middle School after apparent social media threat https://t.co/RxMo2iqT2I Updates and video from over the areas, on Channel 2 Action News at Noon. pic.twitter.com/Zgu9O1nF03
— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) March 12, 2019
After the students returned back to school after the March 12 threat, a message posted that read, “Yeah yall snitched im gonna blow you up.”
Jones said authorities tracked the cellphone back to the suspect’s school, according to AJC.
“When we attempted to track the IP address of the cellphone, it returned to the Rehoboth Road Middle School Wi-Fi system since the student was using that means to access the internet and the Instagram account.”
Officials said the boy lived with his grandmother and she apparently had no idea he even had a cellphone or a social media account. Authorities said the grandmother is being fully cooperative in the investigation.
“At this point it will be difficult to hold the grandmother accountable for the child’s actions or to seek restitution from her, since she had no knowledge that her grandson had a phone and did not know he was accessing social media,” Jones said.
Along with 12 counts of terroristic threats charges, the boy is also facing eight counts of disorderly conduct. He’s expected to face a juvenile judge in April.
[Feature Photo: Pixabay]
