A group of students in a Florida high school pulled a “cruel prank” faking an active shooter situation, the Daytona Beach Police Department said in a statement on Facebook. Now they’re facing felony charges and possible expulsion.
Daytona Beach police said students at Mainland High School “decided to capitalize on the threat” found written on a school bathroom stall and started chaos in their cafeteria.
The students now face pending charges and are accused of “making a false report concerning the use of firearms in a violent manner against a person or persons,” the DBPD said, which is a second-degree felony. The DBPD also recommended expulsion for all of the students in on the prank.
Mainland High School and the DBPD did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
School officials found the graffiti on a bathroom stall on Thursday, and while the DBPD determined it was not a true threat, the school increased security out of precaution.
On Friday, a video obtained by police appeared to show a group of girls approaching a school administrator in the cafeteria and notifying them that someone had a gun, the DBPD said. At the same time, a boy across the room waited for the girls to talk to the administrator, then created chaos by running out of the cafeteria, the DBPD said.
The DBPD said video footage leading up to the moment the boy ran out of the cafeteria did not show anyone in the cafeteria with a gun.
“Video of these individuals prior to and during the incident shows that neither the male nor the female students observed a gun or flinched as you would expect when shots had just been fired,” the DBPD said. “At no time in the video, does anyone stand on a table and present a gun, or fire shots as some people have posted.”
Police said all of the students involved have been identified, and officials have been investigating the situation. According to the DBPD, students’ stories have changed from seeing a man with a gun to “they just heard there was one.”
“This entire incident appears to have been a cruel prank by several students that has now gotten out of control due to internet trolls, miss-informed people and in some cases, people that are not even in Florida, or have kids that go to school at Mainland,” the police department said.
The DBPD said rumors and misinformation have been circulating on social media about Friday’s incident and asked people to call the police with any information they may have instead of simply posting it online.
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