This fed-up Florida sheriff has a message to students involved in shooting hoaxes: ‘It’s going to get your ass sent to jail’
CNN
“You don’t stand up on an airplane and yell hijack. You don’t walk into a movie theater and yell fire, and you don’t get online and post that you’re going to shoot up a school. It’s going to get your ass sent to jail.”
A Florida sheriff is tired of “bogus” school shooting hoaxes plaguing his county – so tired, he’s got a slew of strong words and actions ready for students and parents alike: if you make a threat, “we’re coming after you.” “You don’t stand up on an airplane and yell, ‘Hijack.’ You don’t walk into a movie theater and yell, ‘Fire.’ And you don’t get online and post that you’re going to shoot up a school,” Volusia County Sheriff Michael Chitwood said in a video on social media. “It’s going to get your ass sent to jail.” Chitwood’s remarks follow the arrest of an 11-year-old middle school student in Port Orange, Florida, on Monday, who is being charged with a felony after making a bogus threat to commit a mass shooting at a middle school, authorities said. CNN is not naming the 11-year-old, who has been charged as a juvenile. Beyond his striking words, Chitwood is turning heads for his approach of putting students’ – and their parents’ – names, mugshots and “perp walk videos” on social media for all to bear witness. “Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire,” he told CNN Wednesday. “Under Florida law, I have every right to release your kid’s photo, the video of them being arrested and the police report, and I’m able to come after you, either criminally or civilly, for the cost of the investigation for endangering the child or endangering the welfare of a child.” “And then we’re going to show pictures of you, the parents,” he said. “Because you don’t want to raise your kid, Sheriff Chitwood is going to raise them.”
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