Hays County Sheriff's Office makes arrest in reference to school threat

HAYS COUNTY — A juvenile suspect was arrested in the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 17, and charged with false alarm, a state jail felony — because the suspect is a juvenile, the Hays County Sheriff’s Office will not be identifying the individual who was taken into custody.

The arrest comes after a generic threat that referenced school violence was circulating across social media on Monday, Oct. 16. Several school districts were affected in the area and across Texas. The Austin Regional Intelligence Center (ARIC) was made aware and notified law enforcement in its respective areas. The Hays County Sheriff’s Office notified school resource officers (SRO) and immediately began investigating where the threats may have originated.

Later in the day, a second screenshot was sent out through social media that specified a threat to a school in “Hays” that was to occur around 1:30 p.m., but a specific school was not mentioned. School district officials, as well as SROs, and a separate investigation began.

Hays CISD addressed the threat rumor through two separate emails to parents with the first being sent out at approximately 11:26 a.m. and the second one at approximately 1:11 p.m.

Around 1:30 p.m., a separate and unrelated incident occurred at Hays High School, where a student was vaping in a restroom and the fire alarms were set off, according to a third email sent out by Hays CISD. This caused further confusion and caused several students to leave campus, caused alarm to the entire community and hundreds of parents rushed to the school to find their children, according to a HCSO news release.

An SRO learned a 16-year-old student could be responsible for sending the second screenshot out through social media that referenced a school in “Hays.” The juvenile suspect was located at Hays High School and during the interview, HCSO learned the screenshot was grabbed from social media and personalized to Hays High School as a joke, the release stated. The screenshot was sent to several students which caused one or more of the students to be alarmed and it was posted on social media.

Sheriff Gary Cutler would like to remind everyone that threats of school violence are taken very seriously and should never be joked about. HCSO is “committed to keeping our schools as safe as possible,” according to the news release.