ROTTERDAM – A Draper Middle School student has been arrested in connection with the Twitter threat against Bradt Primary School in Rotterdam, police said Wednesday afternoon.
The student, 14, was interviewed by police and investigators determined that he had no specific plan of carrying out the threat, nor access to weapons, police said.
The student was being charged as a juvenile with making a terroristic threat, a felony. He was not identified due to his age.
The student was turned over to his parent to appear in Schenectady County Family Court later.
The threat came in via a Tweet posted Monday evening that the school district was made aware of Tuesday afternoon. The district responded by alerting parents and indicating that no law enforcement agency found the threat to “represent any kind of credible threat to Mohonasen.”
However, Superintendent Shannon Shine wrote that he understood being concerned and indicated that the Rotterdam Police Department would have a presence in or near both schools, in addition to the district’s normal security monitors and school resource officer.
The tweet was directed at the district and specifically identified Wednesday’s date, 1 p.m. and Bradt. It included a picture of a gun with a loaded ammunition clip and words that continued the threat. A follow-up tweet referenced an active shooter.
Both tweets have been reported to Twitter to have them removed, Shine wrote Wednesday, but both remained available Tuesday evening. They they continued to remain up early Wednesday evening.
The tweets caused a deluge of emails to Shine’s office and “causing quite a panic,” Shine wrote to parents Tuesday.
Shine then went on to outline the investigation, and why law enforcement believes them not credible. The picture is a stock photo, not an actual local gun. And the second “active shooter” threat is similar one previously sent to the district.
Shine also indicated Tuesday the IP address, which authorities were following up on, was from outside the region. Wednesday’s arrest, however, placed the threat from within the district.
Shine addressed that in a follow up message announcing the arrest on the district’s website.
“Although law enforcement had indicated this threat originated from outside the area, believing it to be connected to the other mass swatting incidents in the state, further investigation determined that the suspect in this case, was a “copycat” who was able to mask their location using a Virtual Private Network (VPN),” Shine wrote. “A VPN disguises an IP address and makes it appear a person is accessing the internet from another location.”
Authorities believed the threats to be “part of a larger ‘swatting’ trend” at other schools in the area, state and elsewhere, Shine wrote in an earlier message Tuesday.
“Thank you to the many parents, faculty, staff, students and community members who reported these threats to Mohonasen,” Shine wrote Wednesday. “Safety remains our top priority and we will remain ever vigilant.”
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