Ten-Year-Old Arrested for Mass Shooting Threat After Uvalde Tragedy: Police

A fifth-grade student in Florida who threatened a mass shooting in a text message was arrested on Saturday, the Lee County Sheriff's Office said.

The incident comes less than a week after a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were gunned down Tuesday by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos.

The Florida student, 10, was charged with making written threats of a mass shooting, according to investigators.

"This student's behavior is sickening, especially after the recent tragedy in Uvalde, Texas," Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said in a news release. "Making sure our children are safe is paramount. We will have law and order in our schools. My team didn't hesitate one second to investigate this threat."

The boy attends Patriot Elementary School in Cape Coral in the Lee County School District, where the Threat Enforcement Team was "notified immediately about the text and started analytic research," according to the sheriff's office.

The sheriff's department shared the information in a social media post that included a 22-second video clip of a child with his hands behind his back being led into a police vehicle.

The case was investigated by the Youth Services Criminal Investigations Division. Deputies said the boy was arrested after detectives determined "probable cause."

"Right now is not the time to act like a little delinquent. It's not funny," Marceno said. "This child made a fake threat, and now he's experiencing real consequences."

Newsweek reached out to the Lee County Sheriff's Office and the Lee County School District for additional information.

Also this weekend, police in Massachusetts arrested a man who allegedly threatened to commit a school shooting.

In that incident, Justin Moreira, 29, was charged with making terroristic threats and held without bail on Saturday, the Barnstable Police Department reported in a news release.

Moreira, of Hyannis, posted the threat on Facebook, police said. Officers in Barnstable and Yarmouth "received multiple reports" on the post.

The post did not name a location but threatened a school shooting, police said.

Police located Moreira at his residence, where he was taken into custody. After obtaining a search warrant, investigators determined no firearms were located in his home at that time.

In another weekend report, police said a Virginia man threatened violence against a school on social media in another post shared Saturday.

Cameron Sears, 23, of Suffolk, was charged with threats of death or injury to persons and school property and booked into Western Tidewater Regional Jail, according to the Suffolk Police Department. Police did not identify the specific threat or the school named in the post.