The Feb. 13 security scare at beachside schools prompted scores of concerned parents to keep their children home from school. One hundred students – some 20 percent of the school population – were absent from Hoover Middle School that day. By comparison, only 26 students were absent the previous day and 34 on the day before that. DeLaura Middle reported 128 absences, or about 16 percent of the student body, versus 41 and 46 student absences on the two days prior.
The alarm started with a post by a Snapchat user asking girls to send him nude photos. That escalated, leading to a widely-circulated message that warned “Don’t go to school tomorrow.”
The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating the incident, but BCSO spokesperson Tod Goodyear said Friday that a flurry of messages on the social media app Snapchat ensued on the evening of Feb. 12 after one student told another that he saw a post from someone, also assumed to be a student, asking girls to send nude photos. The student who was told about the post engaged the alleged perpetrator in what became a testy exchange. Then, the alleged perpetrator sent a post that included a pre-made graphic of a rifle and handgun. Such graphics are known as “stickers” in social media and are quick and easy for users to attach to messages.
The other student forwarded that threatening sticker and, somewhere along the way, the phrase “Don’t go to school tomorrow” was used.
“He started sending it to a bunch of his friends and then of course it took off and we got called,” Goodyear said. “Nobody knows the original person. He may not even live here.”
Goodyear said deputies were working with Snapchat to identify the original sender of the message asking for nude photos. Snapchat is a social media app used mostly for sending photos and videos, and is especially popular among kids and teens. Messages – known as “snaps” – can only be viewed for a short period of time before they disappear.
The snaps on Feb. 12 were reportedly circulated mostly among students at Hoover and DeLaura. Students reported the messages to their parents, who then began contacting school officials and law enforcement. The principals of Hoover and DeLaura, as well as Satellite High, sent text messages to parents that evening about a potential threat to area schools, and increased law enforcement was present on Feb. 13 at those three campuses.
School district officials said that same morning that the threat was “unfounded,” and Satellite Beach police said there was never a threat at all.
DeLaura PTO President Rebecca Alpizar said several parents contacted her on Feb. 12 about the messages.
She advised them to call law enforcement, and Alpizar alerted the school principal.
“They weren’t sent to one specific kid or anything like that,” she said of the messages, specifically the one with the guns.
She said several kids from DeLaura did receive the message or saw it, and that fueled rumors of a threat.
“You get 12-, 13-, 14-year-old kids and it’s like the game of telephone,” Alpizar said. “Everything gets heightened, everything gets embellished.”
Alpizar said the person who made the initial “threat” later sent out a clarification.
“Once this had gotten mainstream and everybody was all over it, the supposed kid who had made the original threat sent another snap and it said basically, ‘Look I never made a threat, I’m not going to come and shoot up your school …. I don’t even live in your state,’” Alpizar said.
Alpizar said both students and parents did the right thing by reporting the snaps, despite the fact that it was a false alarm. “It’s hard to draw the line but I think when kids see that this is actually being taken seriously it makes them feel safer in their environment,” Alpizar said.
