A 15-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday on charges of terrorizing after threats he made via social media caused the closure of his high school on O.C. Haley Boulevard and another campus in Gentilly, New Orleans police said.
Around 8 a.m. Wednesday, March 7, administrators at The NET Charter High School became aware of an Instagram post threatening to “shoot up” the school’s two campuses at 1600 O.C. Haley Boulevard in Central City and 6600 Franklin Avenue in Gentilly, according to NOPD reports. They called police, and officers were sent to both campuses, the report states.
“Out of an abundance of caution, school administrators chose to close both campuses for the day,” the report states. “No incidents occurred at either campus in relation to the threat.”
Investigators with the NOPD Third District identified a 15-year-old student at the Central City campus as the author of the threatening post, and obtained a warrant to search his home in the 2500 block of Thalia Street, the report states. There, they found “several electronic items commonly used in posting to social media,” and they located and arrested the boy shortly afterward, the report states.
The boy, whose name has not been released by police because of his age, was booked into the Youth Studies Center on charges of terrorizing, intimidation and interference with the operation of schools, the report states.
The boy’s arrest follows several other recent cases of students charged with threatening their schools. A 17-year-old girl was arrested from Sophie B. Wright Charter School in connection with threatening messages written on a bathroom wall Friday, though she later told police that they were intended as a prank. In December, a 14-year-old student at Lusher Charter School was arrested following an alleged verbal threat he made to “shoot up the school.”
The NET Charter School specializes in the education of overage students, frequently those who have fallen behind their grade levels, helping them to earn a traditional high-school diploma up to the age of 21.
Anyone with additional information is urged to call the NOPD Third District station at 658-6030 to speak to a detective.
