Teen arrested in relation to social media threat

[Photo courtesy Ocala Police Department]

An unidentified 14-year-old student will face a felony charge for making a social media threat to carry out a shooting at Howard Middle School in late January, the Ocala Police Department reports.

According to an OPD Facebook post, the student was arrested Feb. 1 on a charge of making a written threat to do bodily harm, which was made on Snapchat on Jan. 20. The threat was reported by other students to school officials and the OPD School Resource Officer on Jan. 23.

The post stated that OPD has school safety as a “top priority” and requested that anyone seeing these types of threats report them. The post praised the students who reported the threat and SRO Secor and Detective Drake for their work on the case.