AMERICAN FORK – A 16-year-old girl is in potential legal trouble for sending in tips about fake threats against her school through the SafeUT app. She allegedly told police the app was “stupid” and she wanted to bring it down.
Police say the girl claims she had been called to the principal’s office at American Fork High School because of a tip on the app. This didn’t sit well with her. So, she reportedly submitted a few tips of her own.
“Because of that, she submitted several false reports,” says American Fork Police Lieutenant Cameron Paul.
One of the false tips described how a student was going to attack people with a knife, while another involved explosives.
The girl’s reported goal was to send so many false tips to the app, it would be overwhelmed and eventually crash. However, she only sent four before the police paid her a visit. The tips that are submitted are anonymous, but, Paul says administrators still have a way of finding a tipster if they need to.
“The app ended up notifying the school and the school called us. We were all able to work together to get this information and go track her down,” Paul says.
He adds that in today’s climate of school shootings and mass threats, police are no longer playing around when it comes to school threats.
“We’re not tolerant to false threats and false accusations,” Paul says.
American Fork investigators are not sure what charges they’d recommend, if any. The whole matter could be resolved before it even gets to a judge.