District officials had not disclosed whether charges would be filed after a Mumford High School student was arrested over a 911 call falsely reporting an active shooter at the school. The student will not return to the Northwest Detroit school, according to Detroit Public Schools Community District officials.
The district said all students and staff were safe after the incident, which it disclosed in a Facebook post, CBS News reported. In the post, district officials urged parents to discuss with their children the real-world consequences of false threats and calls to police.
Mumford High School sits on a 20-acre campus at 17525 Wyoming Street and is part of Detroit Public Schools Community District.
Investigations Into School Threats
In November 2022, Detroit Police Chief James White said investigators routinely secure search warrants for digital user data from telecom and social media companies to track down whoever is behind the threats, Chalkbeat reported. Then-Superintendent Nikolai Vitti confirmed none of those threats turned out to be credible.
False-threat calls have prompted responses beyond one school or city. In March, police in nearby Warren fielded six alleged swatting calls over two weeks, according to Hoodline’s report on the wave of hoax scares. A Michigan State Police bulletin said a separate nationwide campaign of false threats targeted Michigan schools in 2023, prompting significant law-enforcement responses at multiple schools. And C&G Newspapers reported that police responded to a false active-shooter 911 call at Macomb Mall in Roseville on May 23, 2024.
What Michigan Law Allows Prosecutors to Pursue
Michigan gives prosecutors several possible charges depending on how a false threat is framed. Knowingly raising a false active-shooter alarm in a public place, including a school, is a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine under Michigan Compiled Law Section 750.499, enacted in October 2022. Falsely reporting a felony to a 911 operator or police officer is a more serious felony under MCL 750.411a, punishable by up to four years in prison and a $2,000 fine, with courts able to order full restitution for the cost of the emergency response under MCL 769.1f.
At the top end, knowingly communicating a false report of an act of terrorism is a high-severity felony under MCL 750.543m, carrying up to 20 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has previously warned that false threats against schools, including prank swatting calls, are prosecuted as serious crimes ranging from one-year misdemeanors to 20-year felonies.
How Michigan law distinguishes false reports
The laws described above address different kinds of false communications. The Michigan Legislature’s text of MCL 750.499 makes knowingly and willfully raising a false active-shooter alarm in a public place, including a school, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine. The article also identifies separate statutes for falsely reporting a felony to police and communicating a false terrorism report, with maximum penalties of four years in prison and a $2,000 fine, and 20 years and a $20,000 fine, respectively.
New State Rules Took Effect Days Before the Call
The arrest comes just over a week after a statewide deadline requiring every K-12 school in Michigan to have a behavioral threat assessment and management team in place by October 1. The requirement stems from school-safety legislation signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, designed to help schools evaluate concerning behavior and flag credible threats before they escalate, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of Romulus High canceling a homecoming game over a separate threat this month.
District officials confirmed the student’s departure from Mumford and said no one was harmed. They had not disclosed whether the student had been charged; juvenile court proceedings were scheduled.
