No charges for Dunnellon student who posted video to social media with airsoft gun

The State Attorney’s Office will not bring charges against a local Dunnellon High School student arrested on two charges, including threatening to conduct a mass shooting.

“There was probable cause for the arrest. After a thorough review of the specific facts of this case and existing caselaw a decision was made that the State would not be able to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Assistant State of Attorney Carrie Proctor to wrote the “Gazette.”

The juvenile, who is not being identified per the “Gazette’s” policy of not publishing the identities of minors involved in crime, posted a video to Snapchat of himself holding an Airsoft rifle with the caption: “HE’S BAAAAACK!” An Airsoft rifle is like a BB gun, which shoots plastic pellets.

A parent of a student at the school notified the School Resource Officer that she and her child were frightened by the video.

On Sept. 13, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office posted the name and photo of a local Dunnellon High School student.

The MCSO published the teen’s name and, initially, reported that a search of the teen’s home revealed actual weapons.

They later corrected that misstatement, a key point, because the teen and his family told deputies they often use Airsoft guns for mock battles in their home.

Predictably and understandably, hundreds of people flooded the comments section of the MCSO post. Also predictably, most of the commenters called for the teen, and his parents, to be punished severely.

A few people responding to the MCSO post who identified themselves as family of the teen shared that Airsoft battles are a family activity, and the boy was only talking smack before the next family game.

According to the incident report, the teen’s mother allowed the deputies to search the property. They only found other Airsoft guns, supporting the statements that playing “war” was a family pastime.

The “Gazette” reviewed the video and could not discern any specific threat. The arrest affidavit was not clear on the verbiage of the threat and to whom the threat was made, only that a mother and daughter saw the student’s and it made them fearful.

MCSO spokesman Lt. Paul Bloom said the video “was linked in a stream of comments about a school shooting. So, when others on the post saw this subject’s comment/photo, it was taken in context as pertaining to the school shooting that was being discussed.”

However, this context was not mentioned in the arrest affidavit or the incident report—only that the video was posted on a Dunnellon High School group Snapchat.

The “Gazette” asked MCSO how it was going to handle the social media post of the juvenile following the state’s decision. Lt. Paul Bloom, spokesperson for the department, replied, “Typically, in the past, once something is expunged we can take that down.”

But the family will need to hire a lawyer to obtain an expungement.

Every post to social media by any government entity becomes a public record. While a minor’s court records are sealed, the social media post alleging a crime lives on forever.