For the second time in seven days, Carthage police responded to Carthage High School to investigate a threat of violence to an unnamed school.
According to Carthage Police Capt. Bill Hawkins, the call came to Carthage police at 10:45 a.m. Monday and investigators had a 16-year-old male suspect in custody at 11:15 a.m. Monday.
The report was of a threat of a shooting at an unnamed school on social media.
Hawkins said the suspect has been charged in juvenile court, although he declined to say exactly what charge or charges had been filed.
“You’ll have to get that from the juvenile court,” Hawkins said. “Our investigation is pretty well over. Our criminal investigations division handled this swiftly and efficiently and it has been turned over to juvenile court at this time.”
Carthage School Superintendent Mark Baker revealed that they threat had happened in a message posted on Monday on the school district’s Facebook page in which he asked parents for help making it clear to children that making threats of any kind is a serious matter.
“We need your help,” the post said. “Please talk to your children regarding the seriousness of making threats whether on social media, in person, or on paper to other students or towards school buildings and the consequences of those threats.
“The Carthage Police Department investigated a threat today and determined there was no specific plan of violence. The individual responsible has been detained. Local law enforcement agencies and the school district continue to take threats seriously, regardless if the individual was joking or not.”
Baker said the consequences he mentioned in the Facebook post can be severe depending on how big the disruption was to the school day and the age of the person making the threat.
And Baker said adding “LOL,” the social media shorthand for laugh out loud, to the end of a post containing a threat doesn’t make the threat any less serious.
“Depending on the severity of the threat, the age of the kid, what type of educational disruption occurs, you’re talking about anywhere from an out-of-school suspension to expulsion,” Baker said. “But when you have terroristic threats involved its a law enforcement matter, it’s not just a school matter that these kids are dealing with. And again, LOL does not change the law. LOL does not keep you from getting disciplined. Kids by now should know you cannot say those things and do those things.”
Previous incident
This is the second Monday in a row that Carthage police have responded to Carthage High School and investigated a threat of some kind.
Last week police investigated cell phone screen shots of messages with vague threats of violence that were not directed to any specific school.
In that case, police determined the threats had been made in Mount Vernon and shared with at least one student connected to Carthage, but they had nothing to do with anyone or any school in Carthage.
Hawkins said the two incidents are completely unrelated, but it is unusual to investigate two incidents like this in such a short period of time.
“But at the same time, we’ve had similar stuff in the past,” Hawkins said. “And it could be a month or two months before we have anything else or we could have another one tomorrow.”
Hawkins said parents do need to make it clear to their children that the consequences can be long-lasting and severe for making any kid of threat.
Baker said two threats in one week is unusual and the incident last week was frustrating because it had nothing to do with Carthage.
“It had nothing to do with us except for the fact that our kids were sharing the post,” he said. “And that same post was at other school districts too, it just happened to be our students were sharing it the most. Two incidents in one week is unusual except only one really dealt with Carthage. The one from last week also included Joplin, Webb City, Carl Junction so it wasn’t just us, but we don’t want any reports let alone having two to deal with in one week.”
Get involved
Baker and Hawkins both recommended that parents get more involved I their children’s lives, especially their digital lives on social media.
“Check their kids social media, make certain they understand what their kids are doing,” Baker said. “Because this is not a funny thing, especially as a person gets older and older. The problem we have is social media. Kids can spread things so quick and get it out of control before we can even find the facts.”
“Just try to be more active in your children’s lives and find out who their friends are and what their activities are,” Hawkins added. “People need to establish an open line of communication. If a kids can talk to their parents rather than their buddy who’s going to give them bad advice. Parents can give good advice, they just need to have a better relationship and an open line of communication.”
