Florida sheriff tells parents to ‘do your job’ after students allegedly make bogus school threats - Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood called 54 fake threats 'absolutely out of control'

A Florida sheriff has called out parents and students after saying his agency spent nearly $21,000 investigating dozens of hoax school threats posted on social media in less than a day.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood spoke Friday at a news conference alongside Volusia Public Schools officials, describing the situation as "absolutely out of control."

Chitwood said that 54 threats were reported to the Fortify Florida app, which allows citizens to report suspicious activity to law enforcement agencies, in less than 24 hours.

"That means investigators in the school district have been running around the clock to investigate these tips, which are all turning out to be false. So far, it's cost $21,000 to do these investigations," the sheriff said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the sheriff's office for more information about the cost of the investigations and how they will be paid.

A 13-year-old student and 14-year-old student at Heritage Middle School were arrested and charged with making written threats to kill, a felony, after allegedly posting about committing a school shooting on TikTok and Instagram. A possible third suspect is being investigated.

Chitwood said that law enforcement will "come after" parents of kids who make bogus school violence threats.

"Parents, you don't want to raise your kids, I'm going to start raising them," Chitwood said. "Every time we make an arrest, your kid's photo is going to be put out there. And if I could do it, I'm going to perp walk your kid so that everybody can see what your kid's up to."

The sheriff said that if a parent knew what their child was up to and did nothing, he'd make sure the parents would get perp-walked with their child.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Chitwood said. "Go talk to the families who have lost a loved one in a school shooting. These little knuckleheads think it's funny. Go talk to those parents and see how funny this is. It's not."

The sheriff’s remarks come less than two weeks after a 14-year-old student shot and killed two 14-year-old students and two teachers at Apalachee High School near Atlanta.

By Stephen Sorace Fox News
Published September 15, 2024 1:28pm EDT

Link/Archive

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

The new meta among TikTok Terrorists will be to do whatever you can to get perp walked and your mugshot displayed on social media.

 

[I'mma real anime gurl]

Could it be anybody other than Shitwood?

 

[Sneed's Feed n Seed]

Arpaio 2.0, huh? In another retirement state?

 

[Kheapathic]

Conflicted, because yes he is a cow/retard. But at the same time, kids need to be corralled, and if their parents won't, don't be shocked when law enforcement steps in. You want to make a bunch of shooting threats, you get what you fucking deserve.

Because either 1; nothing happens and the kids keep doing it, or 2; one actually follows through and the Sherriff's Office is ran through for ignoring it. Bullying the idiot fucking kids is the right choice.

But at the same time; you get caught slipping once, don't cry if the people burn your office down.

 

[UERISIMILITUDO]

Florida is starting to get a serious reputation as a 'don't fuck around' state with guys like Chitwood and Grady running law and order.

Yeah, I love how Florida and Texas defend the rights of the people, such as freedom of speech, so long as no one says anything bad about Israel. If someone says anything bad about Israel, the governors of those states will make it very clear how that is unacceptable and will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law.

 

[Get the rope Macaulay!]

Can't wait for him to do a perp walk on a kid that just complains about Israel

he parents who would be alarmed by this behavior and motivated to act by these comments are not the parents of these little shits.

exactly, any honest teacher or cop would understand this and its arguably the biggest reason libertarians exist. When every law punishes law abiding citizens, there seems to be a logical solution (its not but still it makes sense to reach that conclusion)

I anticipate that once the color of these children becomes known, Chitwood (who is a noted coward and establishment lackey) is going to start waving his hands around yelling "look over here, I found some totally real Nazis, they're uhhhhhh behind this tree let me go get them".

You're thinking too smartly, Chitwood already understands what would happen and will just let anyone darker than a brown paper bag get away with it. the same way 0 tolerance laws sure do seem to tolerate niggers.

Boy, it sure is nice to see the book thrown at white children.

Yeah, as soon as there's disproportionate impact of certain communities, he'll stop the tough guy act.

its crazy how many retards there are on the farms now, people are cheering on a guy for arresting white people on bullshit charges because people are too retarded to understand the subtext. "Thank godness this guy is instituting Leopards eating people's faces, this will surely stop crime"

Is it just me or are kids like even bigger pieces of shit now than they ever were?

kids are 9x more likely to be niggers than when you were growing up, and you're so retarded you dont understand thats what you're really complaining about. "these fucking niggers don't act like aryans. america is for the master race godammit"

It’s gonna be tough to perp walk the non-existent parents of these retard criminal children. And once people start noticing patterns in the type of kid who does this, it’s all gonna be shut down anyways.

why do you think he's actually going to lock up those kids? its about scaring middle class whites. Cops aren't robots, they'll take one look at the nigger and walk back. The same way they do anytime they deal with nigger kids.

 

[moocow]

Get the guy from Polk County who did all the pedo crackdowns to do this and I'll believe it.

Shitwood doing this is lame because it gives me hope for a second that comes crashing down once I realize he's a shithead too.

Grady (the Polk County sheriff) would make quick work of kids making active threats against schools. He's not without controversies of his own, but generally he only offends liberals (especially gun control idiots when he literally told Polk County citizens to make sure when they shoot burglars dead that the bodies land on their property to make it easier to get the paperwork done and the citizens back to bed). He's also not afraid to send his own deputies up the river for breaking the law themselves. Several deputies there have been caught in pedo stings and he was merciless about naming and shaming them.

 

[Bonesjones]

Is it just me or are kids like even bigger pieces of shit now than they ever were? It's like the rest of society needs to bully them now because their parents won't discipline them and they're not bullying each other enough.
Also, reminder that kids are fucking stupid and easy to find dox on so if one annoys you anywhere online then you can just contact their parents.

Turns out, if you let single mothers not raise kids you get lawless wild children. If you think latchkey kids are bad wait till you get discord kids or whatever we are going to have.

 

[Namekian George Floyd]

kids are 9x more likely to be niggers than when you were growing up, and you're so retarded you dont understand thats what you're really complaining about. "these fucking niggers don't act like aryans. america is for the master race godammit"

Nah, the white ones are pieces of shit too.
You don't need to make everything into an excuse to niggermax.

 

[AnOminous]

Conflicted, because yes he is a cow/retard. But at the same time, kids need to be corralled, and if their parents won't, don't be shocked when law enforcement steps in. You want to make a bunch of shooting threats, you get what you fucking deserve.

And you should be punished for it after it's PROVEN, not by some bullshit sheriff who thinks he's judge, jury and executioner and plus on top of that sucks cocks to the hilt and drains them dry on the daily.

I could see some kind of diversion where they have to admit publicly they were wrong to do that and attend some fucking therapy because they're obviously in need of serious help. Not sure about psychiatric drugs, because school shooter types and SSRIs don't exactly have a great track record.

Nah, the white ones are pieces of shit too.
You don't need to make everything into an excuse to niggermax.

I think most of these retards are either white or white adjacent (like that hapa Torswats). Groids who are going to do something don't make threats on Xitter or whatever, they just show up with a gun or shiv someone.

 

[clipartfan92]

From the second story below:

Since the school year started a few weeks ago in Volusia County, Chitwood said, his office has reported more than 280 school threats compared to 352 in all of last year.

I wonder what the average number of threats is for the counties surrounding and the whole of Florida.

Florida sheriff fed up with school shooting hoaxes posts boy’s mugshot to social media
Associated Press (archive.ph)
By Kate Payne
2024-09-17 15:27:41GMT

Spoiler

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida sheriff fed up with a spate of false school shooting threats is taking a new tactic to try get through to students and their parents: he’s posting the mugshot of any offender on social media.

Law enforcement officials in Florida and across the country have seen a wave of school shooting hoaxes recently, including in the wake of the deadly attack at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, that killed two students and two teachers.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood on Florida’s Atlantic Coast said he’s tired of the hoaxes targeting students, disrupting schools and sapping law enforcement resources. In social media posts Monday, Chitwood warned parents that if their kids are arrested for making these threats, he’ll make sure the public knows.

“Since parents, you don’t want to raise your kids, I’m going to start raising them,” Chitwood said. “Every time we make an arrest, your kid’s photo is going to be put out there. And if I can do it, I’m going to perp walk your kid so that everybody can see what your kid’s up to.”

Chitwood made the announcement in a video highlighting the arrest of an 11-year-boy who was taken into custody for allegedly threatening to carry out a school shooting at Creekside or Silver Sands Middle School in Volusia County. Chitwood posted the boy’s full name and mugshot to his Facebook page.

In the video, which had more than 270,000 views on Facebook as of Monday afternoon, the camera pans across a conference table covered in airsoft guns, pistols, fake ammunition, knives and swords that law enforcement officers claim the boy was “showing off” to other students.

Later, the video cuts to officers letting the boy out of a squad car and leading him handcuffed into a secure facility, dressed in a blue flannel button-down shirt, black sweatpants and slip-on sandals. The boy’s face is fully visible at multiples points in the video.

“Right this way, young man,” an officer tells the boy, his hands shackled behind his back.

The boy is led into an empty cell, with metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles, before an officer closes the door and locks him inside.

“Do you have any questions?” the officer asks as he bolts the door.

“No sir,” the boy replies.

The video prompted a stream of reactions on social media, with many residents praising Chitwood, calling on him to publicly identify the parents as well — or press charges against them.

Others questioned the sheriff’s decision, saying the 11-year-old is just a child, and that the weight of the responsibility should fall on his parents.

Under Florida law, juvenile court records are generally exempt from public release — but not if the child is charged with a felony, as in this case.

Law enforcement officials across Florida have been tracking a stream of threats in the weeks since the 2024-2025 school year began. In Broward County, home to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, officials said last week they had already arrested nine students, ages 11 to 15, for making threats since August.

“For my parents, to the kids who are getting ready for school, I’m going to say this again,” Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony said at a press conference, “nothing about this is a laughing or joking matter.”

“Parents, students, it’s not a game,” he added.
___
Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Days after posting mugshot of a boy accused of school threat, sheriff puts video of 2 teens online
Associated Press (archive.ph)
By Kate Payne
2024-09-19 00:57:34GMT

Spoiler

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Around the country, communities are being battered by a wave of school shooting threats, sparking emergency notifications, urgent group chats and heightened fears among parents that their child’s school could be the next Parkland or Sandy Hook or Uvalde — or any other town hit by mass shootings.

On Florida’s Atlantic coast, Sheriff Mike Chitwood of Volusia County said he got some of these same notifications after he walked his grandchildren to school this week.

“It just stuck with me because my cell phone was going off telling me about the other threats. Thinking to myself, how many parents in this country have done just what I just did,” Chitwood said, “and they never, ever, ever get to hold their loved one again.”

Fed up with school shooting threats in his community, Chitwood pledged to publicly identify students accused of making such threats.

On Monday, he posted the name and mugshot of an 11-year-old boy arrested for allegedly threatening to carry out a shooting at a middle school in his county. The decision swiftly drew praise and criticism amid the ongoing national debate over what it would take to stem the gun violence plaguing the nation. On Wednesday evening he released another video online showing two more young people, identified as 16- and 17-year-olds, in handcuffs and being led to jail over what he called another school threat.

The initial video posted by Chitwood online showed what an arrest report described as “various airsoft style rifles and pistols, magazines, fake ammunition ... and several knives and swords” that investigators say the 11-year-old boy gathered. The footage later cuts to an officer leading the handcuffed boy from a squad car before he’s locked into an empty cell. The boy’s face is frequently visible in the video, which already has gained hundreds of thousands of social media views.

Then on Wednesday, Chitwood was at it again, posting a message online: “Two more students are in custody following a school shooting threat” and adding of the teens, “We will introduce you to these two in the very near future.”


Hours later the sheriff posted a Facebook video showing two teens being led in handcuffs from a law enforcement van into separate empty cells. He is heard saying in the post: “Go talk to the families who have lost a loved one in a school shooting. These little knuckleheads think it’s funny? Go talk to those parents and see how funny this is.”

The AP generally does not identify anyone under 18 accused of a crime or transmit images that would reveal their identity.

Chitwood this week told The Associated Press he doesn’t know if publicly shaming accused juveniles will be effective. But he had to act to get through to students and their parents.

Since the school year started a few weeks ago in Volusia County, Chitwood said, his office has reported more than 280 school threats compared to 352 in all of last year.

“Something has to be done,” Chitwood said. “Where are the parents?”

Under Florida law, juvenile court records are generally confidential and exempt from public release — unless the child is charged with a felony, as in this case.

Chitwood has a reputation of being a tough-talking figure and maintains he is within his rights to identify such young people.

“I’m not worried about the 2% that might get handcuffed that somebody might get offended about,” Chitwood said. “I’m worried about the other 98% that are trying to go to school and live their normal lives not in fear to get an education.”

Daniel Mears, a criminology professor at Florida State University who researches school shootings, said the sheriff’s actions are contrary to the spirit of the juvenile justice system.

“Juvenile records were supposed to be confidential for a reason. The idea was that kids would have a second shot in life,” Mears said.

Still, Mears said there have long been exceptions for particularly heinous crimes, noting school threats are treated differently.

“School shootings are just really unbelievably scary and concerning to people,” he said.

Among those applauding the sheriff’s actions is Max Schachter, whose son Alex was murdered along with 16 others in a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

“We had a culture of complacency that led to the Parkland school shooting. And we can’t be complacent anymore,” Schachter told AP. “We should be holding the individuals that perpetrate these threats and become mass shooters to the highest extent of the law. And ultimately we should be holding their parents responsible.”

Chitwood has said he’s investigating whether parents of kids who make threats can be held financially or criminally liable.

The first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting — Jennifer and James Crumbley — were sentenced in April to at least 10 years in prison as a Michigan judge lamented missed opportunities that could have prevented their teenage son Ethan from possessing a gun and killing four students in 2021. The parents were convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier in the year.

In Winder, Georgia, prosecutors have filed charges against the father of a 14-year-old boy accused of killing two students and two teachers in a recent high school shooting.

Keri Rodrigues, president of the education advocacy group National Parents Union, said what’s needed is gun control — and sufficient psychological support for children in crisis. Surveys show American youth are in the throes of an unprecedented mental health crisis.

“I think parents across the country are struggling with what to do with kids,” Rodrigues said. “It’s so difficult because we don’t have enough social workers. We don’t have enough school psychiatrists.”

Kathleen Miksits is the mother of two middle schoolers in Volusia County. She believes students and parents need to understand the toll these threats take on their community. Miksits kept her kids home one day this week after students at their school was targeted by a threat.

Still, she struggles with the thought that this 11-year-old boy may never live this down.

“Kids say things that they don’t mean. Or they don’t understand what they’re saying,” she said. “But on the other hand, this is an extremely serious matter and we keep having kids die.”
___
This story has been corrected to show an arrest report said the 11-year-old boy had “various airsoft style rifles and pistols” — not airsoft rifles, pistols.
___
Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.