By the Daily Post staff
A 14-year-old who threatened to “shoot up” Gunn High School has been taken into police custody and sent to a hospital for a mental health evaluation, police said today.
On Thursday at 6 p.m., police noticed comments left on the department’s Instagram page by a user whose account profile had no identifying information on it. The user wrote that they were going to “shoot up” Gunn High School.
Detectives began to investigate and discovered the author of the comments was a 14-year-old Gunn student. At 8:40 p.m., police went to the youth’s home and took the student into custody. Police said they also searched the home but found no weapons.
Now police are saying that the comments were “unfounded” and that the student had no real intent to carry out a shooting. Nonetheless, detectives will submit the case to the District Attorney and Juvenile Probation Department to see if any charges should be filed.
“Unfounded threats such as this one are not only criminal in nature, but can also create a great deal of stress and anxiety for students, parents, school staff, and the community in general,” police said in a statement. “Fortunately, in this case, it is not known how widely these comments were viewed by the community, as police themselves initially noticed the comments.”
If the threat is “unfounded” why take the kid into custody and take him to a hospital. Kids goof around all the time. This got out of hand, I’ll admit that, but I think the police are overreacting.
Given where we are with mass shootings, I think the police reaction was 100% justified and necessary. Inciting fear in a community is not “goofing around.” I hope this kid and any other that thinks this is ok learns a lesson.
How is he not entitled to his free speech?
Just wondering.
Talk about an overreaction! Glad the cops didn’t shoot him or beat him up like that guy at Buena Vista.
The young teen was taken into temporary custody and handed to juvenile authorities to see what is needed. One possible basis for the action is that the teen engaged in a “criminal threat” as defined in CA Penal Code section 422 which would qualify the conduct as juvenile delinquency unde the CA Welfare and Institutions Code. No warrant is required. There may be other laws that apply – including the authority to lock up persons that appear to be a danger to themselves or others for evaluation. One assumes the Palo Alto police has some law(s) in mind when they grabbed him. It is and should be a crime to terrorize by threats of physical harm.