A Florida teen is in custody after a TikTok hoax claiming Southport Middle School would be bombed led to a swift police investigation. The video, warning of an attack "On Monday The 20th," sparked immediate concern among the school community, according to CBS12, which first reported the incident.
Following the flurry of calls from concerned parents, detectives with the Port St. Lucie Police Department traced the fake account, "Benjamin Franklyn," to a local IP address. Registered under Comcast, the IP address led authorities to Justin Joseph, a 14-year-old student of the mentioned middle school, in just five hours after being alerted. “They think it’s a joke until they’re found out and then they got to pay the consequence," Master Sergeant Dominick Mesiti of the Port St. Lucie Police Department told CBS12.
No explosives or materials related to the hoax were found. Authorities have emphasized the gravity of even hoax threats, with Sgt. Mesiti adding, "When you don’t take it serious and let one slip, that might be the one that causes damage, so we take each threat seriously," as obtained by CBS12. Despite the allegedly prank nature of the threat, shock and fear were real emotions on campus as students and parents began learning of the threat yesterday, with one seventh-grade student, Ryder Scimeca, telling CBS12, "It was scary."
With increased security ensuring the safety of Southport Middle School, Joseph faces a felony charge under Florida law: one count of electronic threats to kill, do bodily injury, or conduct an act of terrorism. He was transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice, as WPBF reports. The recent incident forms a pattern with a prior arrest of a 12-year-old local student, who after threatening a classmate and school, admitted it was just a prank, which Port St. Lucie Police had disclosed earlier last month.
