An 11-year-old female BCSC student remained detained at the county’s Youth Services Center Tuesday as Bartholomew County Prosecutor Lindsey Holden-Kay determines what charges may be filed in the case.
The juvenile is being held on preliminary charges of felony intimidation and misdemeanor false informing in regard to a Snapchat posting Friday indicating a shooting threat to Parkside School on Monday.
She was taken into custody by investigators Sunday night and has remained at the youth services center since then, including after a detention hearing in juvenile court.
Although the juvenile was taken into custody Sunday, the Columbus Police Department, the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department and Indiana State Police worked together Monday with Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. school resource officers to provide security at all BCSC schools on Monday, Columbus police said.
Earlier, prior to the girl being taken into custody, investigators said the juvenile did not have access to weapons and the threat was determined not to be credible.
It was similar to numerous social media threats made to school corporations around the state and around the country last week, which have resulted in school attendance disruptions and student arrests.
BCSC said in a statement that the school corporation works closely with local agencies to thoroughly investigate every report of a threat. In addition to legal consequences, any student who makes a threat will face disciplinary action at school up to and including suspension and expulsion, BCSC officials said.
State law allows the media to cover cases of juveniles charged with offenses that would be felonies if committed by an adult. The Republic has informed Holden-Kay that it intends to cover in person court hearings involving the 11-year-old female if she is formally charged with a felony.
In 2018, the Republic covered a series of school threats involving local schools, covering the juvenile court hearings involving felonies. There were as many as seven threats locally which coincided with the anniversary of the Feb. 14 school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people died.
The Republic did not name the juveniles who were charged with felony intimidation in those seven cases, but followed each case through the court system or until it was reduced to a misdemeanor and hearings were no longer open to the public or to media coverage.
In one of the cases, a 14-year-old juvenile accused of felony intimidation in making a social media school threat was ordered by then-juvenile magistrate Heather Mollo to enroll in victim impact exercises, where an offender is made aware of the impact of crime on victims and communities and was given a suspended 90-day secure detention sentence. The juvenile was placed on six months of probation, ordered to perform 32 hours of community service and ordered to pay $326 in various fees and court costs as well as a $10 per month probation fee.
Although the boy’s parents called the threats “jokes,” both the mother and father agreed with Mollo that their son had committed an extremely serious offense. They promised Mollo to keep their son under close supervision as he was then taken off electronic monitoring following the disposition hearing.
