Sierra Linda High School Lockdown – Once another student at Sierra Linda High School saw something concerning on social media and informed authorities about it, one of the school’s students is now in serious danger. There was a picture with a caption that read “Planning the School Shooting” that was uploaded to SnapChat. The caption was only one line long. The user who reported it to police lives in North-Glenn Colorado, while the child accused of making the threat lives here in Phoenix; the two had never met until the incident was reported.
SnapChat is a popular program among adolescents and young adults that enables users to capture videos or images, add captions to those videos or photos, and quickly share those films or photos with other friends who are also using SnapChat. After that, the photo or video is intended to be deleted, but the vigilant student in Colorado who spotted the post kept it and subsequently brought it to the attention of the authorities. Kaylee Helton shared her experience, saying, “It read plotting the school shooting, and it terrified me out at first, so I texted my mom.”
Kaylee preserved the image by taking a screenshot of the article and storing it. When you save a photo on SnapChat, the app notifies the user who originally shared the image. He then asked Helton why he had taken a screenshot of his story. “So he SnapChatted me,” Helton recalled. During that exchange, the identify of the student from Sierra Linda was revealed. Kaylee reported the incident to her administration as well as a school resource officer, who in turn notified the Phoenix Police Department.
It appears that the news circulated more quickly on social media platforms than it did on the real campus, which is located near 67th Avenue and Lower Buckeye. “Some kid posted he threatened to shoot up our school on SnapChat, some kid in Denver saw it and contacted Phoenix Police, and they found him with guns in his backpack,” said Ethan Clay. The children were unaware of what had happened until after the suspect had been located and apprehended by the authorities.