Florida Teen Arrested For Online Threats To Shoot Up High School

Police in Central Florida arrested a 15-year-old boy Friday for making online threats to commit a high school shooting. The teen reportedly insisted the comment was a joke.

Authorities stumbled upon the teen's threats about a shooting at Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida, after he had allegedly posted comments on a video game chat board under a fake name and said he would bring his father’s M15 to school. The comment said he would then kill a “minimum” of seven people at the school.

An unidentified individual later reported the comment to the FBI, who then reached out to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies were later dispatched to the teen’s Volusia County home to take him into custody.

“Joke or not, these types of comments are felonies under the law,” Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement to media. “After the mass violence we've seen in Florida and across the country, law enforcement officers have a responsibility to investigate and charge those who choose to make these types of threatening statements.”

The teen’s arrest comes at a time when another Volusia County resident was arrested for threatening to commit a mass shooting. Tristan Scott Wix was charged Friday after his ex-girlfriend told police about ominous text messages.

It's also the latest arrest to occur in the wake of recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.