Days after uploading mugshot of a child implicated of college danger, constable places video clip of 2 teenagers on-line

TALLAHASSEE,Fla (AP)– Around the nation, neighborhoods are being damaged by a wave of college capturing dangers, triggering emergency situation alerts, immediate team talks and increased anxieties amongst moms and dads that their kid’s college might be the following Parkland or Sandy Hook or Uvalde– or any type of various other community struck by mass capturings.

On Florida’s Atlantic shore, Sheriff Mike Chitwood of Volusia County claimed he obtained a few of these exact same alerts after he strolled his grandchildren to college today.

“It just stuck with me because my cell phone was going off telling me about the other threats. Thinking to myself, how many parents in this country have done just what I just did,” Chitwood claimed, “and they never, ever, ever get to hold their loved one again.”

Fed up with college capturing dangers in his neighborhood, Chitwood promised to openly recognize trainees implicated of making such dangers.

On Monday, he published the name and mugshot of an 11-year-old kid apprehended for presumably endangering to perform a capturing at an intermediate school in his area. The choice promptly attracted appreciation and objection in the middle of the continuous nationwide discussion over what it would certainly require to stem the weapon physical violence pestering the country. On Wednesday night he launched an additional video clip online revealing 2 even more youths, recognized as 16- and 17-year-olds, in manacles and being resulted in prison over what he called an additional college danger.

The preliminary video clip published by Chitwood online revealed what an apprehension record called “various airsoft style rifles and pistols, magazines, fake ammunition … and several knives and swords” that detectives state the 11-year-old kid collected. The video footage later on reduces to a police officer leading the handcuffed kid from a team vehicle prior to he’s secured right into a vacant cell. The kid’s face is often noticeable in the video clip, which currently has actually acquired numerous countless social media sites sights.

Then on Wednesday, Chitwood went to it once more, uploading a message online: “Two more students are in custody following a school shooting threat” and including of the teenagers, “We will introduce you to these two in the very near future.”

Hours later the sheriff posted a Facebook video showing two teens being led in handcuffs from a law enforcement van into separate empty cells. He is heard saying in the post: “Go talk to the families who have lost a loved one in a school shooting. These little knuckleheads think it’s funny? Go talk to those parents and see how funny this is.”

The AP generally does not identify anyone under 18 accused of a crime or transmit images that would reveal their identity.

Chitwood this week told The Associated Press he doesn’t know if publicly shaming accused juveniles will be effective. But he had to act to get through to students and their parents.

Since the school year started a few weeks ago in Volusia County, Chitwood said, his office has reported more than 280 school threats compared to 352 in all of last year.

“Something needs to be done,” Chitwood said. “Where are the parents?”

Under Florida law, juvenile court records are generally confidential and exempt from public release — unless the child is charged with a felony, as in this case.

Chitwood has a reputation of being a tough-talking figure and maintains he is within his rights to identify such young people.

“I’m not worried about the 2% that might get handcuffed that somebody might get offended about,” Chitwood claimed. “I’m worried about the other 98% that are trying to go to school and live their normal lives not in fear to get an education.”

Daniel Mears, a criminology professor at Florida State University who researches school shootings, said the sheriff’s actions are contrary to the spirit of the juvenile justice system.

“Juvenile records were supposed to be confidential for a reason. The idea was that kids would have a second shot in life,” Mears said.

Still, Mears said there have long been exceptions for particularly heinous crimes, noting school threats are treated differently.

“School capturings are simply truly extremely terrifying and worrying to individuals,” he claimed.

Among those praising the constable’s activities is Max Schachter, whose boy Alex was killed in addition to 16 others in a 2018 mass capturing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

“We had a culture of complacency that led to the Parkland school shooting. And we can’t be complacent anymore,” Schachter informed AP. “We should be holding the individuals that perpetrate these threats and become mass shooters to the highest extent of the law. And ultimately we should be holding their parents responsible.”

Chitwood has said he’s investigating whether parents of kids who make threats can be held financially or criminally liable.

The first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting — Jennifer and James Crumbley — were sentenced in April to at least 10 years in prison as a Michigan judge lamented missed opportunities that could have prevented their teenage son Ethan from possessing a gun and killing four students in 2021. The parents were convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier in the year.

In Winder, Georgia, prosecutors have filed charges against the father of a 14-year-old boy accused of killing two students and two teachers in a recent high school shooting.

Keri Rodrigues, president of the education advocacy group National Parents Union, said what’s needed is gun control — and sufficient psychological support for children in crisis. Surveys show American youth are in the throes of an unprecedented mental health crisis.

“I think parents across the country are struggling with what to do with kids,” Rodrigues claimed. “It’s so difficult because we don’t have enough social workers. We don’t have enough school psychiatrists.”

Kathleen Miksits is the mother of two middle schoolers in Volusia County. She believes students and parents need to understand the toll these threats take on their community. Miksits kept her kids home one day this week after students at their school was targeted by a threat.

Still, she struggles with the thought that this 11-year-old boy may never live this down.

“Kids say things that they don’t mean. Or they don’t understand what they’re saying,” she claimed. “But on the other hand, this is an extremely serious matter and we keep having kids die.”

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This tale has actually been dealt with to reveal an apprehension record claimed the 11-year-old kid had “various airsoft style rifles and pistols”– not airsoft rifles, guns.

___ Kate Payne is a corps participant for The Associated Press/Report forAmerica Statehouse News Initiative Report for America is a not-for-profit nationwide solution program that positions reporters in neighborhood newsrooms to report on undercovered concerns.