Deputies arrest a high school student outside his home in Volusia County, Fla., Aug. 16, 2019. Photo: Volusia County Sheriff's Office
VOLUSIA CO. Florida — A 15-year-old Florida high school student has been arrested after police say he made threats in an online video game chat room, “vowing” to bring a gun to school and “kill 7 people at minimum.”
Police say the unnamed Seabreeze High School student from Daytona Beach posted the threat on a Discord server, under the name FalconWarrior920.
The chat read, “I Dalton Barnhart vow to bring my fathers m15 to school and kill 7 people at minimum.”
Someone reported the comments to the FBI and the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, who were able to locate the teen at his home.
The teen insisted to responding deputies that his comments were a joke, but in a statement, the sheriff’s office replied, “Joke or not, these types of comments are felonies under the law. After the mass violence we’ve seen in Florida and across the country, law enforcement officers have a responsibility to investigate and charge those who choose to make these types of threatening statements.”
His mother can be heard on the body-camera footage released by the department, saying, “He’s just a little kid playing a video game.”
The boy faces a charge of threatening to discharge a destructive device.