Four students in Caruthersville behind bars due to posting threats on social media

CARUTHERSVILLE Mo. (KBSI) – Four people are behind bars for threatening their schools. 

Caruthersville school district is breathing a bittersweet sigh of relief as four teens are now behind bars in connection to a threat that surfaced Monday and shut down school Tuesday.

“Even if you’re 99% sure that it is not a valid threat, we are not willing to risk that 1% for any kid or any staff member. That day we were not in session to allow the Caruthersville Police Department to complete the investigation and find those responsible.”

Brad Gerling is the superintendent for Caruthersville school district, and he explains that they canceled school on Tuesday due to the threat and immediately got police involved.

The school board was forced to regroup again as another threat leaked out on Tuesday evening but by that time leaders and law enforcement had a good idea of which teens were responsible.

“We are coordinating with Chief Hudgens with the Caruthersville Police Department to possible bring him in where we can have assembly and address students on proper and improper usage of social media and what kind of implications that can have on their lives and for some permanent.”

Gerling says the investigation is still ongoing to make sure no one else was involved.

He stresses that the school district has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to threats.

Gerling stresses that he is working closely with the Chief for Caruthersville Police Department and plans to host an assembly on what to do and not to do when it comes to posting on social media and why it’s so serious.

“At this time there are four juveniles in custody.”

As for the juveniles in custody the Police Chief Tony Jones says in this case it didn’t take long to track down the fake Snapchat account. 

“Tracked the IP addresses and tracked them back to where the messages originally came from.”

Jones says the social media post was a picture of a gun and bomb emoji that told students to watch out and beware.

“I believe it’s a TikTok trend or Snapchat deal or whatever the social media those young kids think it’s a joke to do that they want a day out of school. But they’re going to social media through ways to get out of school and they’re scaring people today. Everyone’s scared something happened to their kid at school. Staff is scared something will happen to the children or themselves.”

Safety measures such as metal detectors and the police department near the scene have been reinstated for Caruthersville school district as they plan on having a safe rest of the year.

“At the end of the day, everybody wants to have a calm, safe place to go to school and that was the focus of getting everyone in today.”

As for the four individuals responsible for the threats in Caruthersville we wait to hear from the Police Department on the release of names and when the first court hearing is.