ATLANTIC BEACH, Fla. – There was no arrest made after a school threat incident Monday at Mayport Coastal Sciences Elementary, according to an incident report obtained Wednesday by News4JAX.
According to the incident report, a man who has two children at the school went there to talk to school officials about getting his son into an after-school program. When he was told there are no openings, he got mad and started swearing, according to the report. A staffer told him to leave and said he shoved her and made a threat about “when the bullets are flying your way,” the report states. He left the school but was placed in custody, the report says.
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The man, who has two other children, was apologetic and said he was stressed out about child care, the report shows.
According to the report, the man, who News4JAX has chosen not to name since he was not arrested, was issued a trespass warning, which means that if he returns to the school, he will be arrested.
Mayport Coastal Sciences Elementary School Principal Katie O’Connell sent to students’ families a message, which Duval County Public Schools provided to News4JAX, saying there was a “security concern” on Monday morning that promoted the school to operate on a code yellow status as a precaution. A code yellow lockdown means that there’s a heightened security state, but that the school still holds classes.
According to the message, there was a disturbance in the front office, where a parent “became upset and made threats against the school.” The message says, “This incident was isolated to our front office, and students and staff remained safe.”
This incident comes after a student was arrested Friday after allegedly making a social media threat aimed at Atlantic Coast High School, prompting the campus to be placed on code yellow status, according to the principal.
On Friday morning, Dr. Michael George, principal of Atlantic Coach High, told students’ families that school officials were informed of a social media post from a student threatening a shooting at the school. The principal said that police identified the student accused of making the threat and that the student was apprehended. DCPS later confirmed that school police arrested the student within three hours of becoming aware of the post.
News4JAX on Monday obtained the incident and arrest reports, which identify the student arrested on a charge of sending a written threat to conduct a mass shooting as a 14-year-old boy, who News4JAX has chosen not to name. According to the incident report, the teen had posted an image to Snapchat with a threatening message toward the school, and another teen saw the image and reported it to police. The report states school police searched the 14-year-old and his backpack and did not find a gun.
Duval County School Police Department Chief Greg Burton told News4JAX on Friday that threats are not something the department takes lightly.
“We don’t take them as being a joke, a lapse in judgment,” Burton said. “We take each one very seriously, and if we find out who made the threat, we will do the investigation and make the arrest.”
According to DCPS, there were 46 threats to harm schools in 2020-21. That number more than doubled — to 109 — in 2021-22, according to the school district, although learning from home due to due COVID-19 may have played a factor in that change.