Anthony Steward and Micah Swinnie, pre-teen Volusia County, Florida school students arrested threatening to shoot and kill teachers and classmates at their school.
Where were the parents? Two Florida students, ages 10 and 11-years old at two different schools were arrested one day apart, for allegedly threatening to shoot and kill teachers and classmates.
Anthony Steward, 11, and Micah Swinnie, 10, are alleged to have ‘made violent threats’ at their respective schools prior to their arrests this week according to the The Volusia Sheriff’s Office.
According to investigators, Steward — a student at DeLand Middle School — allegedly gained access to a classmate’s Gradebook Communications account and sent the message ‘imma shoot you’ to seven teachers.
11-year-old perp repeat wannabe school shooter offender
Video shared by the sheriff’s office shows Steward being escorted from a patrol car and led into the sheriff’s office in handcuffs. As an officer secured the cuffs around his wrists, the boy complained they felt ‘real tight.’
Authorities said this was not Steward’s first encounter with law enforcement. He was previously arrested in October for allegedly making similar threats using a classmate’s Gradebook Communications account, targeting community members at Southwestern Middle School.
A day earlier, deputies arrested Micah Swinnie, 10, a student at Pride Elementary School.
Investigators said Swinnie allegedly left a list of people he intended to kill on a desk in a classroom. Authorities also said he wrote a message on a classroom whiteboard indicating he planned to bring a gun to school.
Where were the parents?
Body camera footage shows Swinnie exiting a patrol car with his hands cuffed behind his back, saying, ‘It feels like a confinement in there.’
The boy reportedly told deputies he did not mean the threat, and a parent told investigators he does not have access to a firearm.
Swinnie was taken into custody on a felony charge of making a written threat to kill, though authorities said it remains unclear whether formal charges will be filed.
The sheriff’s office urged parents to speak with their children about the severity of making violent threats, writing, ‘teach them this lesson before they learn it in the juvenile justice system.’
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said he was frustrated after deputies handled two similar cases involving young students in the same week.
‘You can pat them on the head and tell them everything’s going to be alright. My job is to look out for everyone else,’ Chitwood said in a statement. ‘These idiotic threats disrupt our schools, eat up time and resources, and increase the chances a real threat slips through the cracks.’
Adding, ‘If you can threaten to shoot seven teachers, you can take a perp walk. Parents, discipline your kids and I won’t have to.’
