A Middle School Student Was Arrested for Making a Mass Shooting Threat on Snapchat

On Wednesday night, a student at George Fischer Middle School in northern New York state sent Snapchat messages to fellow students threatening a mass shooting at his school. 

“Hello, would you like to be a part of a GFMS mass shooting?” read messages from an anonymous account, whose username was simply ‘GFMS’ alongside two gun emojis. The messages, viewed by VICE News, were sent to multiple students of George Fisher Middle School in Carmel, New York.

When one of the students who received the message replied that they were confused, the sender said: “Yes or no. Would you like to be involved in a GFMS mass shooting?” The same recipient replied, “that’s weird.” In response, the sender said: “It’s not weird, it’s fun.”

Concerned parents called the police at midnight on Wednesday to report the threat. Officers were able to identify the account holder almost immediately, and arrested them at 3 am, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.

The person detained was a student at George Fisher Middle School, the Carmel Central School district superintendent Mary Margaret Zehr confirmed to VICE News.

“Based on the age of the defendant, they were referred to Family Court,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. The sheriff’s office did not respond to VICE News’ requests for comment on the perpetrator’s age or how many students received the message.

George Fisher Middle School delayed the opening of the school on Thursday morning by two hours and informed parents about the threat in an email sent at 8.30 am. Despite police saying there was no longer a threat to the students’ safety, they deployed extra officers to the school on Thursday and Friday.

The Snapchat message also appeared to have been sent to students at a neighboring school district, according to an email sent to parents by Laurie Bandlow, the superintendent of Brewster Central School District.

The incident comes just weeks after the school district was rocked when three students posted racist threats on TikTok last month that also threatened a mass shooting. One of the videos featured the principal of George Fisher Middle School appearing to say: “I hope these n*****s get shot because they just don’t learn. I am bringing my machine gun to school.”

The school district was strongly criticized by parents for initially downplaying the seriousness of the incident, and later, the racism within the videos. 

On Tuesday night, the day before the middle school student sent the threats via Snapchat, a group of parents held a protest outside the monthly Carmel Central School District board meeting about their feeling that the district has “failed black and brown students with a lack of meaningful action in light of racist death threats.”

One of those at the protest was Abigail Santana, whose child attends George Fisher Middle School. She is one of the parents who called the police on Wednesday night when she saw the Snapchat message. 

Though Zehr said the incident on Wednesday does not appear to be “related to the TikTok videos that previously created concern in the district,” Santana and other parents disagree. They believe that the school did not adequately punish the students who posted the racist TikTok video, and that leniency acted as an invitation for other students to make similar threats.

“This is what we have been saying,” Santana told VICE News. “Copycats will happen because those three students got away with it.”

The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office also investigated the TikTok videos but decided that the students had not broken any laws. This week, the New York Attorney General’s office confirmed that it was “reviewing” the incident.

In the first week of March, three weeks after the TikTok videos were first discovered, the Carmel Central School District did hold a series of meetings to address parents’ concerns and implemented some new policies—such as an anonymous alert system—to further protect students. But the district has consistently refused to disclose the details of how the students who posted the videos were being punished. A spokesperson for the district simply stated that they would be “dealt with according to the student code of conduct.”

For the last six weeks, Gina Torres, a Puerto Rican woman whose son is in sixth grade at George Fisher Middle School, has been among an outspoken group of parents who are demanding change in the school district and for the three Carmel High School students who posted the racist TikTok videos to face appropriate punishment, which they say should include expulsion and possible criminal prosecution. 

“One of the reasons we have been fighting tirelessly for change, is because we feared that not holding the students accountable for making threats to murder children of color would embolden other students to act in a similar way,” Torres told VICE News. “The lack of repercussions for those children sends a dangerous message.”