CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – A student and a mother were arrested in separate school incidents in Clay County.
Three Clay County schools went on a modified lockdown on Wednesday following the incidents that raised safety concerns and prompted concurrent investigations.
Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook said two of the school lockdowns started with a tip that warned someone planned to bring a gun to Clay High School.
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After deputies investigated, Cook said a younger brother was mad at his older brother, so the younger brother created a fake text thread about bringing a gun to school, screenshotted the text thread and sent it to Fortify FL, an app for reporting suspicious activity to law enforcement.
Cook said it was an attempt to get his older brother into trouble and to disrupt the school.
Cook said the 14-year-old has been arrested and accused of false reports of a firearm, a felony.
Clay High School and Bannerman Learning Academy, the schools the brothers attended, were both placed on a modified lockdown as deputies investigated.
Separately, deputies responded to a situation at Coppergate Academy, which also went on modified lockdown, where students were not able to leave classrooms after a student brought a gun to class.
The sheriff said the child’s mother put a gun in the backpack of the student and instructed the child to give the gun to her father when she saw him.
“The child gets in the vehicle with dad, goes to school, and forgets the firearm is in there, ending up at school with a firearm,” Cook said.
The mother was arrested and accused of child neglect and giving a firearm to a minor, a third-degree felony.
Psychologist Justin D’Arienzo explained that some students may believe they won’t face consequences due to a developmental mindset called the "personal fable."
“The reality is, bad things can happen to anyone,” he said.
One guardian of a student in Clay County, Phillip Moody, said he feels his student is safe, but is also concerned with how students act these days.
“Yeah, because you hear so many things going on, you never know,” he said.
