A teenager at Taylor Middle School was arrested after he threatened to commit a shooting at the school.
According to Taylor Police Chief Henry Fluck, on Aug. 25, around 5 p.m. a 14-year-old boy allegedly made a threat in the middle school locker room used by the football team.
“One of the football players ... threatened that he was going to come in the locker room and shoot it up the next day,” Fluck said.
Police do not have a motive for the threat.
• page 1
Fluck said one of the students who heard the threat told his mother, who called the police and school officials. School Resource Officers were on duty at the time the student was discussing the plans, and the SROs, with assistance from patrol officers, were able to quickly investigate the criminal offense and effect an arrest of the student. The student was arrested at 10:16 p.m. at the student’s residence.
“The police department acted promptly,” Fluck said. “That’s the way we handle all of these incidents. We have to investigate them to make sure it happened and what exactly did happen. Then if we have probable cause to make the arrest, we’re going to move forward promptly.” No weapons were found when the student was arrested.
The student was transported to the Williamson County Juvenile Detention Facility where he was booked and charged with exhibition, use or threat of exhibition or use of firearms, a class A misdemeanor.
“The police department takes these threats very seriously,” Fluck said. “We aren’t going to wait around for someone to carry out one of these threats. We are going to do the best of our ability to negate or reduce the threats before it happens.
We don’t want to put anyone in harm’s way and we want to prevent the type of school shootings we’ve seen throughout the nation and Texas.”
