Florida Sixth-Grader Arrested After Threatening to Shoot 'Kids and Teachers'

A day after a Florida school shooting left 17 dead, police arrested an 11-year-old girl in a town [...]

By Libby Birk

A day after a Florida school shooting left 17 dead, police arrested an 11-year-old girl in a town just half an hour away from where the massacre took place after she wrote a note threatening to bring a gun to school and kill "kids and teachers."

Davie Police told Local 10 that video surveillance shows the student slipping a note under the door of the assistant principal's office in Nova Middle School.

"I will bring a gun to school to kill all of you ugly a— kids and teachers b—. I will bring the gun Feb. 16. 18. BE prepared b—!" the note, released by police read.

Officers say the sixth grader is now facing a felony charge because of the threat, with one count of written threats to kill or do bodily injury.

Police also obtained a handwritten confession from the student which seems to allege that she wrote the note to avoid getting into a fight with a peer.

"I placed a note under the AP door and I got caught on tape," the note says. "My friend Sarai to write the letter or she will get her friend to fight me because she does not like because someone said that I like (name withheld). So to avoid getting in a fight with her friend, I put the letter under the door."

Local 10 reports that the girl was crying and upset when confronted by officers about the note, according to a police report.

The girl was later taken into custody and transported to the Broward Juvenile Assessment Centre.

"This arrest is evident that these types of crimes will be taken serious," Davie police spokesman Mark Leone told the Sun-Sentinel.

The girl's school, Nova Middle School, is just half an hour away from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where 19-year-old suspect Nikolas Cruz has been charged with killing 17 people on Wednesday.

Cruz, who attended the high school before being expelled last year, is being held without bond at Broward County Jail.

Since the Wednesday massacre, there have been a number of "copycat" threats made at other nearby schools, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said in a news conference, although authorities are hesitant to classify the threats as "copycat."

"We will respond to every threat. Every threat we receive, we will not classify it as a copycat or prank call," Israel said. "We will respond in full and investigate it."

The Sheriff's office Twitter account wrote that it "will respond with full power to any threats and copycats will be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law."

Isreal did not indicate how many copycat threats have been made against neighboring schools, nor did he share details into those hoaxes.

On Thursday, Davie police said all Broward high schools had been put on "Code Yellow" lock down for precautionary measures, adding "there are no threats at this time."

Code Yellow means there will be limited access to school campuses. "This is for precautionary reasons only," police stressed.

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