Suffolk County teen arrested for threatening shooting at Bellport High School, DA says
BELLPORT, N.Y. -- A student is under arrest for allegedly threatening a massive shooting at Long Island's Bellport High School.
As CBS2's Andrea Grymes reported Friday, the Suffolk County district attorney says his office is taking cases like this very seriously.
The threat came on Instagram and the target was Bellport High School, according to investigators. They say a 16-year-old student posted a message saying, "Bellport mass shooting (tomorrow)?" That prompted the principal and a parent to quickly call 911 before anything happened.
"It's shocking because I went to that school and you never want to hear bad things about the school you're in or the school you graduated from," Nina Abbate said.
"Everybody needs to be watched and everybody needs to pay attention," resident Maximilian Cavalli said.
Suffolk DA Raymond Tierney says the student posted the message Wednesday evening and was arrested Thursday. His name is not being released because he's a minor, but he was arraigned in Family Court on Friday afternoon, charged with making a terroristic threat and aggravated harassment.
"Thankfully, this incident appears to have been a terrible prank gone wrong and the accused had no capacity or intention to act on the threat," Tierney said.
Police say they searched the student's home and found no weapons. School remained in session Thursday, with an increased police presence.
After , authorities in Bellport said they want everyone to remain vigilant and to know any threats or pranks will not be tolerated.
"The reason why we were able to make an arrest in a very timely manner was because people saw something and they said something," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said.
"This is not a joke. This will be taken serious and you will be prosecuted," Tierney added.
The DA said he's planning a special summit within the next month with all Suffolk County schools, law enforcement, and parents to improve their response to school safety threats and to keep kids safe.
The DA's office said the student was placed on supervised release with GPS and a 9 p.m. curfew. The school superintendent said there will also be disciplinary consequences.