Louisiana man charged in Carolina Forest High School threat

CAROLINA FOREST, S.C. (WBTW) — A Louisiana 19-year-old is facing charges in connection with one of several bomb threats at Carolina Forest High School over the past week, Horry County police said Tuesday.

Trenton Alexander Brown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is charged with threatening the use of a destructive device. He was arrested Tuesday with the assistance of Baton Rouge police and the FBI.

Police said Brown will be extradited back to South Carolina to answer to the charges.

The hoax threat was received last Wednesday at about 10:15 a.m., which falsely claimed there were bombs on the campus of Carolina Forest High School.

More threats were then received on Thursday, Friday and Monday. Two juveniles were arrested Friday in connection with one of the prior threats. One of the threats was traced to an internet server in India .

“The Horry County Police Department takes these threats seriously and will continue to investigate each and every threat,” Chief Joseph Hill said. “I applaud the cooperation from our federal and out-of-state partners. We hope communities across the country can rest a little easier knowing public safety professionals are hard at work, day and night.”

15th Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson recently commented on the series of threats warning those who try to mask their IP addresses that they will still be found.

“Two of the three were found in the United States,” he said. “One in Louisiana and one locally.”

He encouraged parents to sit down with their kids and have conversations.

“Encourage your kids to think about, ‘is this worth it,’ and if it’s worth it, the prison system’s for you,” he said.

Richardson said law enforcement will use a lot of money and resources to find the people behind these kinds of threats. He adds offenders will face the consequences through jail time.

Richardson said people tend to copycat and take advantage of situations like this.

“People that look back and say, ‘they did it, sounds pretty cool,’ and that’s what happened last week, I hope that has ended now but if it ain’t, there’s plenty of space in the prisons,” he said.

Horry County Police said it’s treating each threat as a separate investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call its tipline.

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Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Keep up with Adrianna on Instagram, Facebook , and X, formerly Twitter . You can also read more of her work, here .

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Caleb is a digital producer at News13. Caleb joined the team in January 2023 after graduating from Liberty University. He is from Northern Virginia. Follow Caleb on X, formerly Twitter, and read more of his work here .

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