Teen arrested for allegedly threatening Bay High School student

BAY COUNTY, Fla. ( WMBB ) – A Parker teenager is in custody tonight, accused of threatening to harm a Bay High School student and shoot up the school.

The school went into lockdown around 9:00 am Wednesday after someone notified law enforcement about the threat made on social media.

Investigators say the teen quickly regretted his actions.

15-year-old Caleb Brooks was arrested for allegedly threatening to harm a Bay High School student and shoot up the school on social media.

“We received a call from a citizen that had seen a post on Reddit, which is a social media site, indicating that a particular victim was going to be targeted at Bay High School and threats of violence,” Sheriff Tommy Ford said.

Authorities say Brooks is home-schooled and he admitted to making the threat but regretted doing so almost immediately.

He deleted the post, but by then someone had already taken a screenshot of the threat and notified law enforcement.

School Resource deputies and Panama City Police Officers took immediate action.

“Officers and deputies worked together to ensure the school was safe. Our criminal investigations division then began an investigation and are currently working on that to try to track the source of that threat. We do have some leads on that.” Ford said.

Bay District Schools Communications director Sharon Michalik says it was a scary experience for students and staff.

“Our students and teachers were in the middle of some very important state mandated testing, and to go into hard lockdown and not be sure of exactly what’s going on or why, because obviously there are limited details that can be shared at that moment, that’s absolutely terrifying for the people involved,” Michalik said.

Both Ford and Michalik say Brooks will face severe consequences.

“Anyone that thinks that it’s funny or thinks that they can get away with a school threat, they just need to know that we’re going to bring all the resources we have to bear on finding them and holding them accountable,” Ford said.

“It can have serious consequences, both school-based consequences and criminal charges in some cases. That’s not something to play around with. There’s nothing funny about threatening a classmate or threatening a school.” Michalik added.

Brooks is facing one felony count of Written Threats to Kill.

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