POMPANO BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A student has been arrested after being accused of making threats on social media towards Pompano Beach Middle School.
According to Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies, the student, 14-year-old Mehdi Idriss, threatened other students at the school through a Snapchat group text on Tuesday. Some of the messages included a list of other students saying they were on his “list” and that he would bring a gun to school Wednesday.
According to the arrest report, one of the messages said “I will shoot.”
7news spoke to a few students that were involved in the group, but remained faceless due to their age.
“We all just thought it was a joke, until he made a list and all that,” said one student.
Another student said “I thought he was joking and that stuff, and I didn’t think he really meant it, but you still can’t be saying that stuff. It’s just not OK.”
A student at the school showed her mother screenshots from the social media app. That mother then reported it to BSO.
“We as an organization do not consider any form of threats to our schools, as some form of humor or joke in the state of Florida,” said BSO Sheriff Gregory Tony.
Some parents said despite a robocall that the school board said they sent out to parents, said they hadn’t heard anything about it.
“I think it’s ridiculous, it’s getting out of hand with these kids. I was just texting my daughter to see what was going on, cause I’m like what is going on. These people, and they don’t tell you nothin,” said a concerned parent. “They didn’t send no notes home or nothin.”
Another parent said she wonders a lot why some children still don’t understand why they shouldn’t send threats.
“You know what’s really going there, what are they thinking about, what’s causing them to be able to say those kinds of things. It’s really something going on, like someone troubled,” said another parent.
“You see what happened to the other school, all the kids got killed there so, I would have taken my kids out of the school. To be honest, because I don’t feel comfortable no more,” said another parent.
Tony has a message for those students who are not getting the message.
“We are going to ultimately execute and arrest, put handcuffs on people and it is going to change your life for the negative forever,” said Tony.
“Personally I don’t really know what to do in this situation,” said a student.
Authorities responded to Idriss’ home and met with him and his father. The suspect is being held at the Juvenile Assessment Center.
The student has since been charged with one count of written threats to kill, and will be facing a judge Thursday.
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