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A Shawnee High School student has been suspended after posting a threat on Twitter on Wednesday morning.
Clark-Shawnee Superintendent Gregg Morris said a male senior posted on Twitter that he was “going to shoot up the school before I go,” which the student said are lyrics to a song.
An assembly was held at the high school Wednesday afternoon to warn students of social media abuse, and a one-call message was sent to parents that evening. The high school was not evacuated nor were students released early.
The student could face expulsion, Morris said. A hearing will be held in the next 10 days, and Morris will chair the hearing. The Clark County Sheriff’s Office is actively investigating the matter, Morris said.
“It was deemed very quickly that this posting did not pose a threat,” Morris said. “This type of abuse of social media is a very serious matter and looked upon as a serious offense.”
The threat was posted on Twitter around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, and the school district received a call from Geocop.com — a governmental agency that monitors social media school threats, Morris said — about 30 minutes later.
Brian Kuhn, Clark-Shawnee assistant superintendent, said sheriff’s deputies were able to corroborate the student’s story after interviewing other students who were with him when the tweet was posted. Detectives in the Clark County Sheriff’s Office could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Kuhn said students’ access to the school’s wireless network has been shut down the rest of this week.
“That underscores the seriousness of this type of activity,” Morris said. “You just can’t do this type of thing.”
There are about 740 students at Shawnee High School and 2,210 total students enrolled in the Clark-Shawnee district.
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