12-Year-Old Charged, Made Online Threats Against NJ School District: Police

MAPLE SHADE, NJ — A 12-year-old has been charged with making threats on a series of school-related social media accounts in the days leading up to a national social media challenge that centered around school shootings.

Reports from concerned parents began coming in to the Maple Shade Police Department on Dec. 15, police said on Monday. The reports came from concerned parents who believed there were threats being made against the Maple Shade High School community by unknown actors.

At the same time, Maple Shade Public School District administrators began receiving similar complaints from students, parents and staff, that they in turn reported to police.

In the days following these reports, Maple Shade police said they conducted an investigation into additional threats being posted to a variety of social media accounts. Police said they were in contact with their law enforcement partners at the county and state levels, sharing information as appropriate.

“Through the diligent work of our investigative team, the Maple Shade Police Department was able to identify a 12-year-old juvenile as being responsible for a portion of the threats found on some of these social media accounts,” police said in a statement. “Due to the fact that this person is a juvenile, their name is not being released.”

This was two days before the national “Shoot Up Your School” challenge, in which Tik Tok was being used to encourage young people to threaten gun violence at their schools. Read more here: Police Patrol NJ Schools In Response To TikTok Gun Challenge

On Monday, police said the juvenile didn't use Tik Tok in this case, and couldn't say if the two were related. They did ask parents to talk to their children about the appropriate use of social media.

“Please include in that discussion the importance of bringing concerning situations to the attention of a responsible adult so that appropriate action can be taken in a timely fashion,” police said. “In addition, it is also important for your children to avoid taking any direct action themselves with respect to these kinds of posts by commenting or attempting to elicit a response, as these posts inherently challenge the safety of our community and are frequently the cause of disruption to our daily lives.

Police said it is apparent that it isn’t just an issue in Maple Shade. It is impacting many towns in New Jersey and across the country, police said.

“This agency will continue its investigation into this incident in an effort to identify any additional actor(s) that may have been involved,” police said. “We wish to also express our sincerest thanks to the residents of Maple Shade for speaking up and alerting us to this situation, as well as our partners at the Maple Shade School District. We have repeatedly stressed the importance of ‘see something/say something’ in our community for years, and this was a great example of that.

“Protecting the safety and security of our children, their learning environment and the staff members that make this all happen is of the utmost importance to our agency and that was reflected in our presence at each of our schools within the district during this time.”

The juvenile was charged with third-degree terroristic threats, second-degree false public alarms and fourth-degree cyber-harassment.