Local shooting threats ruled to be unsubstantiated



UPDATE: 
The person behind the shooting threat made towards one of our local schools has been arrested. 

 

After receiving reports about last night’s threat on Instagram, our Watsonville High School Resource Officer immediately began coordinating with Pajaro Valley Unified School District officials to create a safety plan for schools within the city. Part of the plan called for additional police presence at schools throughout the city.   

 

Ofc. Johnson also began working with our detectives to track down the origin of the threats. Together, Johnson and our detectives were able to identify a PVUSD student as the person who made the threats. The student was arrested this afternoon for making criminal threats. 

 

Early on in the investigation, officers determined the threats to be unsubstantiated. Despite all of this, we must take these types of threats seriously. 

 

We ask parents to take the time to sit down with their kids and explain to them the severity of making fake social media threats and to keep tabs on their social media activity. 
ORIGINAL:

Overnight, we were made aware of threats made towards one of the local schools within the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. 


We believe this stems from a viral social media challenge that encourages shooting threats at schools throughout the country. 


So far, Watsonville officers have ruled these threats to be unsubstantiated. Parents and school staff have already been notified of the incident. 


We are working with school district officials to ensure the safety of students and staff and have additional police presence at schools throughout the City.