A 15-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday, June 1 for allegedly threatening to “shoot up” Riverhead High School, Riverhead Town Police said. He is the third Long Island teen to threaten a school shooting in the week after a Texas elementary school massacre.
Riverhead officers had responded to the school on Harrison Avenue for an unrelated incident when they were advised shortly after 1 p.m. that a student threatened to conduct an act of violence against the faculty and students, police said.
“I’m gonna shoot up the school,” the boy allegedly yelled in a classroom, according to investigators. Riverhead High School security immediately detained the boy, who was found to not be in possession of any weapons. Police searched his home and found no weapons either.
The boy, whose name was not released because he is a minor, was taken to Nassau County Juvenile Detention Facility, where he was detained until his arraignment Thursday at Suffolk County youth court. He was charged with a felony count of making a terroristic threat, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, if convicted.
He is the third teenager on Long Island to be arrested for making such a threat in the past week. A 16-year-old boy from Bellport allegedly made similar threats online of a “massive shooting” at Bellport High School on May 26 and an 18-year-old Westbury High School student was arrested May 31 in connection with violent threats he allegedly made toward students and faculty, authorities said.
The local threats came days after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24 — the deadliest elementary school mass shooting since December 2012, when 20 first graders and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.
Related Story: Westbury High School Student Charged With Making Terroristic Threats
Related Story: Teen Threatened ‘Massive Shooting’ at Bellport High School, Cops Say
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