A 14-year-old student at Interlachen Junior-Senior High School was taken into custody on Wednesday after using school technology to imply threatening violence. According to First Coast News, the juvenile reportedly typed "I have a gun" into Google Translate on a school-issued computer. Notably, the device had monitoring software called Linewize, which picked up the student’s alarming search.
The situation quickly became serious when the student attempted to falsely accuse a Spanish-speaking peer of composing the message—a claim that was quickly disputed by another student who confirmed the accused's innocence. "But another student came forward to say the Spanish-speaking student did not use [his] computer," First Coast News reported.
Prior to this event, Putnam County was already on edge due to several similar incidents. Earlier that week, a 13-year-old from Palatka Junior-Senior High School was arrested for sending a written threat to two classmates. The threat included pictures of guns and mentioned choosing a weapon for a possible school shooting, according to Action News Jax.
An 11-year-old was charged for sending a photo of what looked like guns with a scary message saying, "Don’t come to school tomorrow." The photo turned out to show airsoft guns. Sheriff H.D. "Gator" DeLoach reacted strongly, saying, "First to create a false threat is enough for a one-way ticket to the Department of Juvenile Justice, but then to stoop so low as to take advantage of a Spanish-speaking student in an attempt to set that student up for an arrest is despicable and inexcusable," as reported by News4JAX.
