Police arrested a 16-year-old boy on Long Island for threatening a mass shooting at Bellport High School. Pei-Sze Cheng reports.
A Long Island teenager has been arrested for allegedly threatening to carry out a "massive" shooting at his high school.
Authorities in Suffolk County said the 16-year-old student posted to Instagram on Wednesday, threatening to shoot up Bellport High School the next day. District Attorney Raymond Tierney said Suffolk County police with help from the FBI were able to link the post back to the teen and later arrested him.
After interviewing the teen, officials conducted of search of the home where he lives and did not find any guns inside the home, Tierney said in a news release Friday.
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The district attorney's office did not release the identity of the teen because he is a minor. The accused 16-year-old was arraigned Friday afternoon, and was given supervised release.
The teen's parents said he is a tenth grader who works at McDonald's, plays soccer and is a good student. But law enforcement said that they would not take anything lightly, especially in the days after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire on an elementary school in Texas, killing 19 children and two adults.
The massacre in Uvalde, Texas, became the deadliest school shooting since 20 children and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.
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"In light of recent events, we have to make sure we, as a community, are doing everything we can to keep kids safe," said Tierney.
