FBI Unveils #ThinkBeforeYouPost Campaign Against School Threats

HOUSTON — The FBI has launched a new nationwide public awareness campaign warning students and parents that making hoax threats of violence, particularly at schools, can land you in prison. The campaign dubbed #ThinkBeforeYouPost was unveiled at a press conference with FBI Special Agent Perrye Turner and local law enforcement leaders to remind everyone that making threats, even as a prank, is no laughing matter.

“With the school year underway, we need students and the public to understand that making threats against a school is not a joke. There are serious legal consequences for those who do, even if there was never an intent to carry out the threat,” Turner said. “The FBI and all of our partners here today, take these threats very seriously.”

In the days following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman-Douglas High School that left 17 people dead, school districts in the Houston area and in the U.S. recorded hundreds of threats at school campuses, with many of them being hoaxes posted on Snapchat, Facebook, or other social media sites.

Jabari Dean was a University of Chicago engineering student when he acted out of anger and posted an online threat to kill 16 white students and staff at the university during the Thanksgiving weekend in 2015.

The threat, which was determined to be a hoax, caused mass hysteria and led to Dean’s arrest.

He has since become the face of the #ThinkBeforeYouPost campaign.

That same year that Dean made his threat, a man in Cypress made several online threats to schools in Minnesota and called in fake hostage situations. The man was arrested and is serving a federal prison sentence, Turner said.

Assistant Chief Tim Navarre with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a number of hoaxes last school year. One of those hoaxes came from someone who claimed to be part of a terror network who’d planted explosives at an area high school.

“He stayed on the phone for more than hour with our 911 operator and gave specific details to what the plan was about the plot,” Navarre said.

When those who post those online threats are caught, which is nearly every time, they are charged with making a terroristic threat, which is a felony offense.

Navarre said cases like these are becoming all too common.

“It’s time to put a stop to it,” he said. “Anyone making these threats can expect serious criminal charges against them.”

The Houston region #ThinkBeforeYouPost campaign will include digital billboard space generously donated by Clear Channel Outdoor to promote the message. Motorists will see the billboards along major highways in the greater Houston area beginning September 18, 2018.

Public assistance is crucial to efforts to curb these hoax threats. If there is any reason to believe the safety of others is at risk, we ask that the public immediately contact their local police department by calling 9-1-1, or contact the FBI Houston Field Office at 713-693-5000.

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