March 16, 2016

Ithaca High School Student Threatens Mass Shooting in Facebook Post

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Jacob M. Rollins-Young, 17, a student at Ithaca High School, was arrested and charged with a felony Tuesday after threatening a mass shooting at his school via Facebook, according to a press release from the Ithaca Police Department.

Police charged Rollins-Young with originating a terroristic threat — a Class D felony — Saturday night, and he was arrested Monday night, according to The Ithaca Journal.

The police responded to an alert at approximately 3:28 p.m. Saturday, after concerned students who had seen Rollins-Young’s Facebook comments notified Ithaca High School principal Jason Trumble, according to the release.

The Facebook posts included the narrative of an imagined shooting — “Local Teen Opens Fire at Ithaca High” — in which Rollins-Young describes a “Caucasian male” opening fire with an assault rifle “in a cafeteria nearby.” He also repeatedly suggested that he was not joking, according to the felony complaint.

In a Facebook conversation between several IHS students, “one student became upset and made a direct threat to another student followed by a threat of violence to the entire IHS community,” according to an email sent by school administrators to students’ parents.

The police “do not believe the student who made the threat poses an actual threat to the IHS community at this time,” according to the email.

As a precaution, however, police will hold increased patrols around the school, the release said.

The case is currently under investigation, and no further information about the context of the threat has been released, beyond that it involved a mass shooting with an Ak-47, according to the release.

Rollins-Young was released to the custody of a family member under the supervision of Day Reporting, according to Ithaca Police. He is due back in court on March 25.