Miami.- A 22-year-old man was arrested this Thursday for threatening on social networks with a shooting at Loogers Run Middle School, in Palm Beach County (Florida), and shooting six students from that educational center in the who was a student
Fernando Gaete, based in the city of Boca Raton, was arrested and transferred to a prison in that county on the charge of “written threats to carry out a mass shooting or an act of terrorism,” the local channel WPTV picked up this Thursday, of West Palm Beach.
According to the arrest report, the Palm Beach School District Police Department received a call Wednesday afternoon from a woman who alerted to two posts posted on the social platform Discord.
“I Dominic Valentine promise to shoot 6 students at Logger Run High School Monday morning,” the post read.
The instant messaging service provided authorities with the IP address that identified the user of the program as Gaete, a former student of this school, who is only 2 miles (3 kilometers) from his home.
Two police detectives appeared at Gaete’s home and questioned the young man in front of his parents.
The Loggers Run alumnus admitted he had a Discord account and had posted a school shooting threat and would “shoot 6 students”.
Asked why he wanted to shoot students from that school, the young man replied that “he was very angry.”
Gaete’s father told detectives that he had weapons at his home, but they were stored in a secure location.
A judge set Gaete’s bond at $100,000 and barred him from any contact with Palm Beach County schools or anyone under the age of 18, as well as access to the internet or social media.
Miami-Dade and Broward County Police, South Florida, have repeatedly urged parents to remind their children that “any threat, even if you think it’s a joke, carries serious consequences”since it is considered a second degree felony, in addition to school disciplinary measures, including expulsion.
Since the massacre perpetrated in 2018 by Nikolas Cruz at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, which cost the lives of 14 students and 3 employees, there have been numerous arrests in this state for death threats and false threats with weapons in schools, the vast majority made by adolescents.
