Michigan student arrested after threatening to shoot up her school 'like Oxford,' prosecutors say

Advertisement
Michigan student arrested after threatening to shoot up her school 'like Oxford,' prosecutors say
A police vehicle remains parked outside of Oxford High School on December 01, 2021 in Oxford, Michigan.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
  • A teen in Michigan was arrested after authorities said she threatened to shoot up her school "like Oxford."
  • The 17-year-old student at Flint Southwestern Classical Academy was charged Thursday as a juvenile.
Advertisement

A teenage student in Michigan was arrested on Thursday after authorities said she threatened to shoot up her school "like Oxford," in reference to the deadly school massacre that unfolded in the state earlier this week.

The 17-year-old student at Flint Southwestern Classical Academy was charged Thursday as a juvenile with one count of false threat of terrorism and one count of using a computer to commit a crime, the Genesee County prosecutor's office said.

The prosecutor's office said the student, who was not publicly identified, was on a bus on her way to the school on Thursday morning when she recorded a video on her phone "in a rap-style message in which threats of shooting up the school 'like Oxford' were made and posted to social media."

The student was ultimately arrested at the school after an assistant principal was alerted about the incident and notified police, prosecutors said.

Flint Police said in a statement that the teen did not have any weapons on her at the time of her arrest.

Advertisement

Each charge the teen faces is a 20-year felony, prosecutors said.

"My message to our community has been loud and clear over the years whenever we have had instances of so-called 'copycat threats' following a school shooting or other mass shooting incidents around the country and that message is that it is not a joke, it is a crime and it will be treated as such," Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said in a statement.

"I'm not going to try to figure out whether this incident in Flint [Thursday] was intended to be a joke or whether it was a credible threat, the bottom line is that it's a crime," he added.

A 15-year-old student at Oxford High School in Oakland County — roughly 35 miles away from the school in Flint — has been charged for going on a rampage there on Tuesday, fatally shooting four students and wounding several others.

{{}}