A 13-year-old Crestview boy has been arrested and faces felony charges after the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office investigated a TikTok post targeting multiple schools in Okaloosa County, the agency announced Tuesday.
- The arrest is the second in two days tied to TikTok posts threatening schools in the county. On Monday, the OCSO announced the arrest of a 12-year-old Fort Walton Beach girl who was charged after a TikTok post threatened a mass shooting at Pryor Middle School and Bruner Middle School.
In the latest case, the OCSO said it received multiple tips through Fortify Florida on Monday regarding a fictitious TikTok account that posted a concerning message referencing Crestview High School, Davidson Middle School and Pineview School.
Through investigative techniques, the juvenile who created the posts was quickly located at his residence and confessed to the crime during an interview with investigators, the OCSO said. The juvenile is homeschooled.
- He was taken into custody and charged with three counts of making a written or electronic threat to conduct a mass shooting and one count of using a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony.
The OCSO said both recent cases appear to mimic a current TikTok trend called “Cat in the Hat,” which it described as a viral social media hoax trend involving threats of school shootings.
“Any individual identified as responsible for creating, posting, or distributing threats on any platform will be thoroughly investigated, and appropriate enforcement action will be taken,” the OCSO said. “Threats against our schools will be treated with the utmost seriousness and will not be tolerated.”
