The El Paso County Attorney will seek serious punishment for individuals who make false threats of violence at schools.
Suspects will be charged with a felony that could be punishable with jail time.
Under the Texas Penal Code Section 42.06, false threats which place a person in fear of imminent bodily injury or cause a law enforcement agency to respond and involve a school campus, are a state jail felony.
Threats of violence against schools, teachers, and children are taken very seriously, stated a news released from DA Yvonne Rosales' office.
Rosales will prosecute the cases referred to their office to the fullest extent of the law.
According to the Texas Penal Code Section 42.06, a person commits a crime when:
- A person commits an offense if he knowingly initiates, communicates, or circulates a report of a present, past, or future bombing, fire, offense, or another emergency that he knows is false or baseless and that would ordinarily:
- cause action by an official or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies;
- place a person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury; or
- prevent or interrupt the occupation of a building, room, place of assembly, place to which the public has access, or aircraft, automobile, or other mode of conveyance.
An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor unless the false report is of an emergency involving a public or private institution of higher education or involving a public primary or secondary school, public communications, public transportation, public water, gas, or power supply or another public service, in which event the offense is a state jail felony.
The attorney's office urges people to report threats of violence by calling school police or 911 and save evidence by taking screenshots of videos of the threats.
In the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting, there have been false threats made at several school in El Paso.
El Paso District Attorney Yvonne Rosales issued the following statement about false threats:
Many people have suffered the effects from the tragedies of mass violence. May we all continue to keep those affected by these senseless acts in our hearts and prayers. Threats of mass violence are taken very seriously by law enforcement and first responders. Many resources go into responding to these threats. When a person reports a threat of mass violence, a chain of events is set into motion. Many law enforcement personnel and first responders are called to the scene. If a report of an active shooter is made at a school (often spread through social media), then children, teachers, school staff, and their families become frightened and worried. Mass hysteria, mass confusion, and miscommunication often occurs. When someone makes a false threat to either law enforcement or other emergency personnel, even as a “simple joke”, this chain of events is still set into motion. The ramifications of a false threat are unnecessary; people still become horrified, and the time and efforts of emergency personnel are taken away from true emergencies. The District Attorney’s office takes the crime of making a false threat very seriously, and it will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Her statement came a day after she spoke to school officials and parents at Bel Air High School after it was placed on lockdown following an alleged threat.
“We need to be more involved in persuading our legislators and our congressmen and women. If we want gun reform then they need to get out there and start making some noise, but I just think we need to focus on today and thank god that we are all able to have avoided another tragedy here in El Paso," Rosales said on Thursday.
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