Junior high student facing criminal charges for using social media to spread fake school threats

SALT LAKE CITY — A junior high student is facing criminal charges after allegedly spreading fake school threats on social media this weekend.

According to the Granite School District, the female student is facing a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and could be removed from her school. KSL will not be disclosing the student’s school as the threat was determined to be a hoax.

District spokesperson Ben Horsley said school officials and Granite School District police were alerted to a post about a school shooting threat on social media on Saturday evening. Police spent hours tracking down the original post, made through an anonymous account, to determine its source and credibility. The threat was determined to be a rumor and unfounded.

In an email sent to parents and students, school officials said they were investigating “why the student posted the rumor.”

“This is becoming a huge draconian drag and force on schools and on law enforcement,” Horsley said. “In this particular case we probably have law enforcement and administrators spending upwards of ten hours in the middle of the night… to verify there was not a credible threat and ensure the safety of our students and staff. She made up something that was not true and it caused consternation… to our school [so this] is an appropriate disorderly conduct charge.”

Horsley said district officials take fake threats just as seriously as real scenarios.

A troubling trend

In the last year, the school district, one of the largest in the state with more than 67,000 students, said they’ve pursued criminal charges in at least a dozen cases; everything from a misdemeanor for spreading lies to felony charges related to terroristic threats where a student makes a direct threat.

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Related:

• Lawmaker wants to make school hoax threats a felony
• The search for the caller behind Utah’s 13 school hoaxes