PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A chilling TikTok video warning of a bombing at Southport Middle School turned out to be a hoax, and the 14-year-old behind it is now in custody.<\/p>\n
The video, which quickly circulated among students and parents, featured ominous white text reading: \u201cOn Monday The 20th Southport middle Is getting bombed by me Stay home alright.\u201d Concerned parents flooded the Port St. Lucie Police Department (PSLPD) with calls around 5:30 p.m. on October 19.<\/p>\n
PSLPD said its detectives launched an investigation, tracing the TikTok account \u2014 under the alias “Benjamin Franklyn” \u2014 to a local IP address. Within five hours, they identified the suspect: a Southport Middle School student who admitted to posting the video as a prank using his iPhone.<\/p>\n
See also: Hunting stand near Air Force One landing zone prompts FBI investigation, road closure<\/a><\/p>\n Police said no explosives or materials were found, but the teen was charged with one count of electronic threats to kill, do bodily injury, or conduct an act of terrorism under Florida law. He was taken into custody and transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice.<\/p>\n Authorities emphasized that even hoax threats carry serious consequences. School security was alerted during the investigation to ensure student safety.<\/p>\n Find more ways to stay up to date with your latest local news. Sign up for our newsletter <\/a>to get the day’s top headlines delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our YouTube channel <\/a>for the biggest stories and can’t miss video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A chilling TikTok video warning of a bombing at Southport Middle School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4920,11307,28,4049,1962,8930,171,173,172,11306,3709],"class_list":["post-12469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-bomb-threat","tag-electronic-threats","tag-florida","tag-hoax","tag-juvenile","tag-police-investigation","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-southport-middle-school","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}