Grady Judd: George Jenkins High student arrested for threatening mass shooting

School safety top of mind

Evyn Moon reports

LAKELAND, Fla. - A 16-year-old student at George Jenkins High School in Lakeland was arrested for threatening a mass shooting at a school, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office said the teen, who FOX 13 News is not identifying, is accused of making the threat over a phone call to Jacksonville's mental health emergency and suicide prevention line.

Judd said during an afternoon news conference that the call came into the mental health line just after 2:15 a.m. Thursday. The caller, described as a young man, said in the call that he was going to hurt himself and shoot up a school.

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According to investigators, the call lasted for about an hour as they tried to find out where the caller was located. During the call, Judd said the caller was saying he was near an elementary school and continued threatening a shooting at his school.

Officials said he even described the guns he was going to use.

The mental health line contacted the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, and Judd said deputies there took the call seriously. JSO got their team of intel investigators involved to try and find the caller.

They were able to ping the phone used to make the call and trace it back to a phone in Lakeland. Polk County deputies were led to George Jenkins High School where they found the 16-year-old student with the phone.

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Judd said authorities that responded to the school found no evidence of mental health concerns from the student. They said they found him lifting weights, and he's described as a very social and highly intelligent student who also played on the football team.

When the teen was questioned about the call, he told deputies he didn't know what they were talking about. However, deputies checked the student's phone and found the call made to Jacksonville's mental health line.

"We take this very serious. Words matter," Judd said Thursday. "This kid went from a football player to in lock up."

No weapons were found, officials said. Judd stressed that they were able to find him thanks to access to forward facing and public data.

"We wouldn’t have been able to find this threat and potentially neutralize it," Judd said. "Had this been for real, we would have been able to have been there before the shooting occurred, because of technology."

The teen has been arrested for making a false report concerning the use of a firearm in a violent manner, unlawful use of a two-way communication device, falsely reporting a crime and disrupting a school function, PCSO said.

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