Stockton student arrested on accusations of making school threats online
STOCKTON — A 16-year-old Stockton student has been arrested after allegedly making school threats and posting them on social media.
Lincoln High School officials and parents are not taking the threats lightly. Several parents pulled their kids from school on Monday, even a couple hours after dropping them off.
This is Lincoln Unified's first year with their cell phone ban. Despite what happened Monday, some parents are still supportive of it.
Lincoln High parent Rafael Montaner works in Tracy but got to the high school in Stockton as fast as he could to pick up his daughter once he got an alert about the matter Monday morning.
"She sounded worried and scared about what was going on," Montaner said. "Luckily, I had a message from my daughter and she said a lot of her friends' parents picked up her friends."
More police officers were placed on campus Monday. The 16-year-old student will face criminal charges, and so could other people who shared the post if they shared it with the intention of spreading the threat, police said.
"We want to minimize distractions however we can and we want to keep students safe, and threats on social media are both a security issue and a distraction," said Tyler Heberle, the media communications specialist with the district.
Heberle said they have several security measures in place, and staff is doing their best to update parents properly.
Because of this, parents like Montaner are trusting the cell phone ban.
"It's one of those things where the cell phone ban, I appreciate it very much because it stops some things between the students and stuff, but it's situations like these where you go, 'Oh, if only she had her phone 24/7,' " he said.
UC Davis Professor Andy Jones agrees with the ban being beneficial for student education.
"It follows them home from the school," Jones said.
During times like these, officials still have to check out any and all threats.
"They have to take these threats seriously, and, therefore, we live in this era where every cry of wolf, someone has to go out and look for the wolves," Jones said.