In Riverside this September, a 13-year-old boy found himself locked up in Juvenile Hall after middle school parents reported an Instagram post depicting a student with a firearm and a list of classmates’ names.
Then, at a Riverside high school, a 15-year-old girl was arrested after students in a group chat on Instagram shared a photo of guns along with a message suggesting violence toward a classmate.
And in another example of what law enforcement officials and safety experts say is a nationwide increase of threatening behavior toward students and schools this fall, a boy was incarcerated after Riverside County sheriff’s officials said he threatened students in Jurupa Valley.
That Moreno Valley resident was 12 years old.
Officer Ryan Railsback, a Riverside Police Department spokesman, said detectives have investigated four threats since school started in mid-August.
“It’s rare when we have even one,” Railsback said, “but to have four in the first month and a half of school is outrageous. I can’t think of a school year where we have had this many over such a short span of time.”
Riverside County sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Avila, who coordinates the school resource officers — deputies on campus — for the Jurupa Valley station, said he has been comparing notes with his counterparts in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties.
“We’re all seeing the same stuff,” Avila said. “The last couple of weeks, there is an increase.”
Safer Schools Together is a national organization that provides training and consultation to schools and law enforcement on digital and behavioral threats. Its founder, Theresa Campbell, has been studying the topic for 30 years.
Campbell estimated from their research that 700 threat arrests have been made nationwide since Sept. 4, when two teachers and two students were slain at a Georgia high school.
Campbell said she doesn’t like the term “copycat” because each student’s situation is different and each threat must…
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