Rutherford County Director of Schools Dr. Jimmy Sullivan speaks on the threats received in the school system
RUTHERFORD COUNTY, TN - Potential school threats showed no intent to carry out these threats after investigations by Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Mike Fitzhugh said Tuesday.
More than a dozen threats were received and investigated by sheriff’s school resource officers, patrol deputies and detectives since the tragic school shooting Sept. 4 in Georgia.
These investigations resulted in the arrests of two juveniles for making posts related to threats at Whitworth Buchanan Middle School last week and Riverdale High School Monday, he said.
“None of these recent investigations have yielded evidence of any legitimate intent on anyone’s part to carry out an actual threat,” Fitzhugh said. “If we obtain evidence of a founded threat, we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”
The majority of investigations determined students are reposting old social media threats or copying posts from threats that have taken place in other jurisdictions, even other states.
Officers invested a great deal of resources in chasing down potential threats, only to determine that reposts of old threats are causing unnecessary panic.
One post made Monday was actually a cell phone screen shot of a social media post that was made in 2018, which resulted in an arrest by detectives.
Students passing along these posts quickly are making it difficult and time consuming for officers to determine the origin of the post.
The sheriff’s office hopes its new campaign, “Report It, Don’t Repost It!” will allow them to establish the validity of a threat much faster.
Students, teachers or parents who see a post on social media or receive a text message that contains potential threats to a school should immediately report the information to law enforcement or school administration and avoid reposting the threat via social media or messaging apps.
The reposting or passing along these threats to a larger audience only makes law enforcement’s job much more difficult and could cause a serious delay in resolving the threat. It can also cause a student to be partially responsible and potentially face prosecution.
Students and parents need to know the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office treats every single incident of potential school threats with extreme urgency.
“The safety and security of our students and teachers are paramount and we need the cooperation of students and parents to help us to resolve these incidents as quickly as possible,” Fitzhugh said.
Please remember, if you receive a potential threat to our schools via social media or messaging service, “Report It, Don’t Repost It.”
See Follow-Up News Article HERE.
