Thirteen-year-old boy threatened to ‘shoot up’ a school, sheriff says

Weapons were seized from the home of a 13-year-old boy who threatened to “shoot up” a Pixley middle school, Tulare County sheriff officials confirmed.

The boy is at the Tulare County juvenile detention center, and investigators are interviewing him as well as those who lived in the home where weapons were found. No assault weapons were found, said Ashley Ritchie, a Tulare County sheriff media specialist.

A school staff member discovered the threat and reported it about 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

The threat came a day after a teenage gunman killed 17 people in a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.

“These are the kinds of calls that we, as a department, hate to get. But when we get them, we take them very seriously,” Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said. “As we saw in Florida and countless times before, we can’t afford to brush these off as juvenile threats.”

Boudreaux on Thursday gave tips in an interview with KMPH Fox 26 on how to handle active-shooter situations.

“I told my daughter yesterday, pick up a stapler and throw a stapler,” he said.

Employees with the sheriff’s office also underwent active-shooter training Thursday.

“There couldn’t be a more appropriate time to remind people that, if you see something suspicious or that seems off, say something,” the sheriff said. “It is so important. And you can do it anonymously. Our deputies can’t look into a situation if they know nothing about it.”

This story was originally published February 16, 2018 at 10:02 AM with the headline "Thirteen-year-old boy threatened to ‘shoot up’ a school, sheriff says."