2 More Students Facing Charges For Threatening Volusia County Schools

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Volusia County, FL - Two 13-year-old boys were the latest to join a growing list of Volusia County students facing criminal charges after making false reports on Wednesday about having firearms at school.

According to the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, the principal of Deltona Middle School reported a suspicious incident on Wednesday that happened during a seventh-period class the day before. The principal said that a teenage boy made comments that alarmed two students and the boy's classmates. VCSO says the 13-year-old boy said, "I'm gonna get suspended after first-period on the last day of school," and "I'ma bring my backpack with all my stuff in it."

A school resource deputy interviewed the two teachers and several students who confirmed that they heard the boy make those comments. Two students added that the boy made hand motions like a gun while making shooting sounds. When the boy was interviewed by the school resource deputy, he said he was making laughing noises like a video he had seen and his classmates mistook that for shooting sounds. The teen's mother told the deputy that the family doesn't have any firearms.

In an unrelated incident, a 13-year-old DeLand Middle School allegedly threatened to shoot someone. VCSO says the boy was upset on Tuesday after he was told to sit where he didn't want to sit in class. When he moved to a different seat the teacher told him to back to his original seat. According to VCSO, that's when he was overheard saying he was going to shoot someone. The teacher gave the teen a referral to leave the class.

The boy's classmates were interviewed about the incident and one said that she heard him say "I have a gun in my backpack," and she thought the students around him were getting scared. Based on the students' accounts of the incident, the deputy decided that the boy had threatened to shoot at least one student in the class, implied that he had a gun, then went through the motions of pulling it out of his book bag, frightening his classmates.

Both of the teens have been charged with threatening to discharge a destructive device, which is a felony.

Wednesday's charges mark the 10th and 11th cases since February 16 where students face criminal charges from VCSO after threatening violence at school.

Photo courtesy Jacob Barone's Law Enforcement Photography and Flickr.com.

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