- January 11, 2025
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A 14-year-old former Buddy Taylor Middle School student was arrested on Wednesday, Dec. 21 for threatening a mass shooting over Instagram.
The teenager, who no longer attends school in Flagler County, was messaging a current student on the app the night before, Dec. 20, when he threatened to shoot up BTMS on Dec. 21, according to the incident report. That student showed the messages to his mother, who reported it to the school's assistant principal and resource deputy at 7:45 a.m. on Dec. 21.
The teenager was removed from the Flagler County School System due to disciplinary issues during the 2021-2022 school year, according to a press release from the Flagler County Sheriff's Office. Deputies investigating the threat determined there was no active threat on the school, since the 14-year-old was in Volusia County on the 21st and had no means of transportation, the press release said.
“Threats such as these are not a joke and will always be taken seriously and quickly investigated,” Sheriff Rick Staly said. “We don’t like making these arrests, but we will protect Flagler County students to the best of our ability any time a threat such as this one occurs."
The 14-year-old is currently an eighth grader in Volusia County, the report said, which let out for winter break on Dec. 16. When investigators contacted the mother who still works in Flagler County, she drove her son to the Flagler County Jail Administration building where he was arrested and charged with sending a written threat to conduct a mass shooting, the press release said.
The reporting student told FCSO deputies that he received pictures from the teenager on Tuesday night around 9 p.m. holding what appeared to be a black handgun.
In the messages, the student said he asked the teenager if it was real, which he denied at first and then asked if the student was going to snitch. The teenager told the student he was going to shoot up BTMS on Dec. 21 and asked if the student wanted to come with him, according to the report.
The student told deputies he said no and that he would stay home, the report said, to which the teenager claimed he was joking and again asked if he was going to tell.
The student immediately showed the messages to his mother, but the teenager had blocked the student and removed the photos from the conversation. Deputies were able to see the photos on the teen's instagram page using their personal accounts, the report said.
None of the photos showed the teenager's face, the reports said, but deputies were able to confirm the identity of the teenager through a second student who had received similar messages from the teen.
When deputies made contact with the teenager's mother, she told deputies that her son was staying in Deltona with a cousin for a few days for winter break, the report said. The woman made a comment to officers that he was playing with a BB gun, but did later in the day turn her son in at the county jail.
The teenager was arrested and transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice, the press release said. Staly urges parents to continue talking to their children about the consequences of sending threats of violence. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office will arrest any student who threatens violence
against anyone, the press release said.
"Thank you to the parent who found messages on their child’s phone and then reported it to us so we could take swift action to prevent an
incident from occurring within Flagler County Schools and making a quick arrest,” Staly said.
