An incident at a Gwinnett County high school involving perceived social media threats had authorities on alert early this week. But everything was back to normal by Wednesday, according to school officials.
Mill Creek High School administrators sent out a letter to parents on Tuesday about an Instagram threat toward three students there. Principal Jason Lane said it appeared the poster wasn’t a Mill Creek student.
School police officers investigated the situation, although threats weren’t made directly to the school or other students, Lane wrote.
Student access to the parking lot and outside lunch area was restricted during school hours. Gwinnett County Schools police and parking lot attendants monitored the parking lot after school.
“I wanted to reach out to you to inform you about this situation as you or your student may hear about it on social media or through the rumor mill,” wrote Lane. “Unfortunately, this appears to be a situation when a non-school-related issue has an impact on our school community. We felt it prudent to be proactive in our response and in our communication to you on this matter.”
At the beginning of the year, Gwinnett County Public Schools partnered with the FBI to launch the Think Before You Post campaign. It was the first district in Georgia to launch this FBI campaign which focuses on educating students about the consequences of making hoax threats online, and, hopefully, decreasing the number of incidents involving student online misbehavior.
The purpose was to educate the public on the consequences of posting hoax threats to schools and other public places and to remind communities that these hoax threats are not a joke.
Making false threats drains law enforcement resources and wastes taxpayers’ dollars. In addition, a federal charge of making a false or hoax threat to a school or another public place carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. If a federal charge is not warranted, state charges can be considered.
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