A 15-year-old boy is behind bars after making a bomb threat to a Tampa high school, police say.
The Tampa Police Department said it was notified of a threat made to Middleton High School just after midnight Thursday.
Investigators learned a student sent a text message on Wednesday from the suspect that read: “Middleton bomb,” “Tomorrow.”
The Tampa Police Bomb Squad conducted a sweep of the school campus early Thursday morning to make sure there was no active threat prior to staff and students arriving.
School arrival was not impacted.
Officers were able to identify the teenage suspect and arrested him at his Riverview home just before 10:30 a.m.
He was transported to the Juvenile Assessment Center and charged with written or electronic threat to conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism.
TPD noted that the 15-year-old is not a student with Middleton High School.
“Threatening the safety of a school is not a joke; it is a felony,” Chief Lee Bercaw said in a statement. “Our detectives worked through the night to ensure students and teachers could arrive at a safe campus this morning. We have zero tolerance for this behavior, and we will continue to hold anyone who disrupts the peace of our educational community fully accountable.”
10 Tampa Bay News is not identifying the teenager due to their age.