7-year-old accused of making threats at school

A 7-year-old Dixie Elementary School student was taken to a detention facility Friday for evaluation after  school officials said he made threats of violence at school.

Whether the boy will be kept at the Montgomery County Juvenile Detention facility was not immediately known, but a preliminary investigation revealed that he is accused of making a “third-party threat” (getting somebody to do something to somebody else), New Lebanon police Sgt. David Adkins said Friday night.

“I believe it was a little more substantial than having someone beat someone up,” Adkins said.

The police department alerted the media about the incident, he said, because “we’ve been getting phone calls from parents.”

Adkins denied that the handling of the incident was in reaction to — or an over-reaction because of — the killings of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December.

“We would have done the same thing [remove the child from school and take him to juvenile detention for evaluation] even without Newtown… just to make sure,” Adkins said.

Friday’s incident likely will be reviewed by the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office Juvenile Division, according to the police department.

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