Two Stillwater Junior High School students are being investigated after they allegedly threatened on Twitter to take a gun to school.
Stillwater police learned about the shooting threat Thursday when a journalist in New York called to report it. His newspaper has social-media analytic software set up to capture any mentions of “school shootings” on Twitter, said Sgt. Jeff Stender of the Stillwater Police Department.
One of the tweets said: “So sick of these cyberbully f—- bullying me they gonna be sorry Monday (three gun emojis) dad got a new gun.”
Three other tweets allegedly posted by the boys “spewed racial and religious hatred, another took shots at Donald Trump, and one of them was a photo where the boy’s face had been superimposed over the face of a man holding a sawed-off shotgun,” Stender said.
Police received calls from people in New York and Washington D.C., who were monitoring Twitter, and also were notified by state and federal law enforcement officials, Stender said.
Investigators determined that the threatening tweets were written by two boys impersonating another student at Stillwater Junior High School, Stender said.
“They were doing that in an attempt to harass and cause the boy problems,” he said. “They had no intention of carrying through said threats, but clearly it caused concern throughout the country.”
Police are evaluating possible charges against the boys; the case remains under investigation.
The journalist who initially alerted police to the threat has asked to remain anonymous, Stender said.