Porterville student arrested for social media threats to middle school

A Porterville student was arrested Tuesday morning for making a threat to a middle school, school district officials said.

Porterville Unified School District officials learned about a social media threat against Sequoia Middle School on Tuesday morning. The student, whose age and gender were not released, was taken into custody by Porterville police, according to a statement from the school district.

There was no evidence the student possessed any guns on campus or at his home, district officials said.

“We are in constant contact with the Porterville Police Department in order to ensure the safety of our students and staff members,” the statement read.

Few details were immediately available. Police could not be immediately reached for comment.

The threat came the same morning an Ohio student shot himself at a middle school and nearly a week after 17 people were fatally shot by a former student at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

The shooting at Parkland seemingly spurred a number of copycat threats across the country.

An 18-year-old man who who threatened to bring an assault rifle to Cambridge High School in southeast Fresno was arrested Friday on charges of making criminal threats, police reported.

Last week, weapons were seized from the home of a 13-year-old boy who threatened to “shoot up” a Pixley middle school.

Students who survived the shooting in Florida have called on legislators to take action, spurring a national debate on gun control. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump called on the Justice Department to ban bump stocks, a device allowing semi-automatic rifles to fire faster that was used in last year’s Las Vegas massacre.

This story was originally published February 20, 2018 at 3:04 PM with the headline "Porterville student arrested for social media threats to middle school."