The Wilson County Sheriff’s Office is sending a clear message after a teenager was arrested following a mid-September bomb threat against Barry Tatum Academy: “Enough is enough.”
WILSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Wilson County Sheriff’s Office is sending a clear message after a teenager was arrested following a mid-September bomb threat against Barry Tatum Academy: “Enough is enough.”
This news comes after the Wilson County director of schools joined 14 Middle Tennessee superintendents in signing a joint statement about reporting school threats.
Back in September, the sheriff’s office responded to one threat after another.
“We had threats through Snapchat; we had TikTok accounts that were created,” said Capt. Scott Moore with the Wilson County Sheriff’s Office.
On Sept. 12, a Mt. Juliet Middle School student was taken into custody in connection with a threat made on TikTok. That same day, a bomb threat was made against Barry Tatum Academy (BTA) were discovered in the registrar’s office, officials said, causing the school to be evacuated while K-9 units swept the inside and outside of the building.
“During the week that we had the bomb threat here at Barry Tatum Academy, that same week, we had between eight to 10 threats that we were dealing with within a two or three day period,” Moore explained.
According to authorities, two threatening voicemails were discovered in the registrar’s office that specifically mentioned BTA.
“At first, we thought maybe it was AI-generated, and now we think it may be through Google translation where they were able to send those voicemails through,” Moore told News 2.
He said this sparks an even bigger conversation: “This is going to be a problem in the future, not just here, but across the whole country with the technological advances that we currently have.”
After a thorough investigation by the school resource officer, authorities said they were able to track the calls back to a BTA student.
“I know in some bomb threats in the past, we have searched all the way back to another country,” Moore said. “This one happened to be a student here at Barry Tatum Academy.”
The sheriff’s office reported that the student — whose age and identity have not been released — was taken into custody on Monday, Sept. 30 and charged with making threats of mass violence and initiating false reports.
“Those are serious charges that this teenager is now facing and is currently in juvenile detention for,” Moore said.
“Threats against our schools, whether real or fabricated, are taken extremely seriously,” Wilson County Sheriff Robert Bryan said in a statement released on Tuesday, Oct. 1. “Our officers acted swiftly, and we will continue to pursue and hold accountable those responsible for jeopardizing the safety and security of our schools.”
The sheriff’s office plans to hold a town hall with parents in December to discuss concerns about school threats, according to Moore.