Cape Coral police say they have arrested a 12-year-old girl that made a school shooting threat on Snapchat.
Police say school resource officers at Diplomat Middle School were alerted to the threat at 1 p.m. on Tuesday.
Cape Coral police say the threat was made by a 12-year-old student from the middle school, saying, “imma shoot up the school tmr” over a Snapchat photo of a weapon that looked similar to a machine gun.
Police say when they spoke to the student who made the threat, she said it was a joke and that the gun wasn’t real, but a fake ‘blaster’ gun that didn’t work.
Officers arrested the girl and took a gray and orange SplatRball gun from the home as evidence.
The 12-year-old is facing a charge of making a written or electronic threat to conduct a mass shooting.
The student will also face disciplinary actions from the school per the student code of conduct.
Kim Fullone is a parent to a student at the school and shared some thoughts about the threats.
“It’s scary to think that, you know, things like that are happening,” Fullone said.
“It was pretty concerning,” Fullone said. “But I was pleased at the fact that you know, they took action right away.”
Fullone found out about what happened in an email sent by the school.
“It just said, you know, the principal sent the email full transparency,” Fullone said.
The email that Fullone and other parents got also thanked the students who reported the threat.
“I do think that parents, especially at this age, middle schoolers are tough. They just parents really need to monitor their kids on social media a lot more. I know, it’s hard. We all work,” Fullone said. “We have a lot going on. We have other kids, but it’s, you know, you have to kind of see what they’re doing.”
Fullone told WINK News she has had a conversation with her daughter about making threats or comments on social media, letting her daughter know how serious it is.
WINK News is not naming the student due to her age.