A disturbed Virginia tween with an interest in snuff films and animal cruelty called in more than 20 violent threats to several Florida schools in May — including one in which he said there were two bombs at an elementary school, and he’d “shoot every police officer that responded,” authorities in the Sunshine State said.
The so-called “juvenile terrorist” — who hasn’t been identified because he’s a minor — was arrested July 19 in Henrico County, Va., about two months after an alleged nine-day spree of phone calls that mostly targeted a handful of schools in Flagler County, Fla.
But the boy also made similar calls to Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Tennessee and Nebraska — as well as the Maryland State House, Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said in a Thursday press conference, according to Axios Richmond.
Staly said the boy is a “juvenile terrorist” who now faces 29 felony counts and 14 misdemeanors for his alleged crimes — which led to massive police responses, locked-down schools and worried parents.
“Look at this,” Staly said at the press conference. “An 11-year-old creating all this chaos and mayhem in our community.”
In one of the calls, the boy allegedly said he’d “shoot everyone in the f—ing head,” according to local news outlet FlaglerLive. He also once claimed to have murdered his teacher.
Cops traced the calls to a home in Henrico County, where cops arrested him, Staly said in a Facebook statement.
The kid admitted to making the calls, and said he’d used methods learned online to dupe the cops and hide his identity, the statement said.
“What we learned was frankly shocking and alarming,” Staly said at the press conference, as he described the investigation.
The boy had an unsettling dark side that included an interest in animal and human cruelty, as well as violent content such as snuff videos of people or cats, FlaglerLive reported.
“This kid needs to be held accountable and get some serious help,” Staly said, adding that cops recovered several disturbing videos after his arrest.
The boy had become consumed by the internet during the pandemic, his mom told authorities. And his brother told investigators that he was “weird,” and that there was “something wrong with him.”
The boy also said he wrote up a script and acted alone.
His alleged misdeeds also likely inspired at least one copycat call in which a 13-year-old boy threatened to blow up a Florida middle school, the outlet said.
The boy is being held in juvenile lockup in Virginia pending his extradition, Axios said.
“With school coming up in less than a month, I know that the status of this investigation was on the forefront of our community’s mind, which is why our detectives never stopped working to find the person responsible for terrorizing our students, parents, teachers, and our community,” Staly said in the statement.
“This kid’s behavior was escalating and becoming more dangerous,” he continued. “I’m glad we got him before he escalated out of control and hurt someone.”
He may be tried as an adult, but Florida State Attorney R.J. Larizza said last week that he wouldn’t “say anything more than that at this point.”
“Sometimes you have to get smacked in the face before you realize something,” Larizza said. “It’s time that people understand just how dangerous the internet can be.”