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2 Columbia Middle Students Charged After Threats to Burn Down Grovetown School or Shoot it Up

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Authorities have charged two students from Columbia Middle School with threats to cause harm at the Grovetown school in two unrelated cases.

Both students told authorities they were joking and meant no harm.

In the first case from Monday, a 14-year-old boy posted this on SnapChat: “I wish someone would burn CMS down. Matter of fact I wish someone would shoot it up. God d..n”

School officials were alerted to it and called the sheriff’s office. In front of his mother, the boy told authorities that “he thought it was funny and he had reposted it from another 14-year-old student that was suspended from Columbia Middle School.”

That 14-year-old girl said the post wasn’t originally hers, and she responded, “Don’t worry Hunter, I got plans.”

She was then charged as a juvenile for the offense, according to the sheriff’s report.

In the second case, a woman said she found threatening text messages on the cell phone of a 14-year-old girl who lives with her. The report doesn’t say whether the teen is her daughter.

The mother said she found the texts threatening since the other child was calling himself a school shooter and indicating he had weapons. He wanted permission to kill the 14-year-old girl’s sister at Columbia Middle School.

“In the messages was an emoji of a gun and the text ‘pew pew that’s a [w]hole autistic class room,” the sheriff’s report said.

The woman was afraid the other child was going to kill her child, the report said.

A deputy checked the messages and discovered both children were texting about killing themselves, sending each other pictures of trees to hang themselves. The officer asked the 14-year-old child if she wanted to hurt herself and she stated she had thought about it in the past. Gold Cross EMS was requested to evaluate her and she was transported to Eisenhower Medical Center for further evaluation.

The 13-year-old boy who sent the “school shooter” messages was interviewed and he said “all of the messages were a joke and he did not intend on harming anyone,” the report says.

The boy’s mother said she didn’t want him making any more statements without an attorney. Authorities arrested him and charged with two counts of terroristic threats and booked him at the Columbia County Detention Center. He was then released to his parents, and his mother requested he be taken to Augusta University Medical Center for an evaluation based on his suicidal statements.

From the sheriff’s report: “I spoke with Columbia Middle School Principal Eli Putnam and advised him of the situation.”

The boy’s mother  allowed deputies to check his bedroom and no weapons were found.

Ever since the bloodbath at a Florida school, area school districts have handled a spike in complaints about school violence threats.

 

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Greg Rickabaugh
Greg Rickabaugh
Greg Rickabaugh is an award-winning crime reporter in the Augusta-Aiken area with experience writing for The Augusta Chronicle, The Augusta Press and serving as publisher of The Jail Report. Rickabaugh is a 1994 graduate of the University of South Carolina and has appeared on several crime documentaries on the Investigation Discovery channel.
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