WASHINGTON 鈥� In the wake of the shooting at a Florida high school, schools across聽the D.C. area are now seeing a聽spike in shooting threats, leaving local authorities busy with investigations.
Maj. Paul Cleveland with the Fairfax County police in Fairfax County, Virginia, said it takes a lot of work.
These threats are often found online, and sometimes, they’re easy to track. But other times, police have little to go off besides a screenshot of the threat making rounds on social media platforms.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got to track down possible IP addresses, where it came from,鈥� Cleveland said.
He added that the work that goes into tracking the threats accounts for many “man hours.”
鈥淭rying to track down anonymous threats through the computer, the cyber area, it takes a lot of time to figure out,” he said.
Many people, such as investigators and school officials, get involved before the inevitable confrontation with the suspect.
鈥淯nfortunately, kids do dumb things,鈥� said Cleveland. 鈥淭hey may be angry about something 鈥� so they鈥檙e going to make a bold statement.聽They鈥檙e going to make a rash statement.聽Many of the cases that we鈥檝e seen, we鈥檒l investigate it through, the kid will say something and didn鈥檛 realize the ramifications for it.鈥�
In some cases, the threat is serious enough that charges are filed against the suspect. Other times, a聽child might be steered into diversionary programs or other forms of help.
But sometimes, it’s just a kid who thinks they’re being funny.
鈥淲e have to treat everything as if it鈥檚 possible for them to do it, and then we鈥檒l downgrade it as we go through it,鈥� said Cleveland. 鈥淎 couple of the recent cases we鈥檝e had 鈥� the kids were just [saying], 鈥業鈥檓 joking around, I didn鈥檛 mean to do it.鈥櫬燱e do want to let them know that聽even if you鈥檙e just joking around, obviously that鈥檚 not acceptable.鈥�
