Diamond Ranch student arrested for shooting threats
A 17-year-old Diamond Ranch student was arrested on Monday for allegedly tweeting a threat to shoot up his high school.
According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the Diamond Bar/Walnut sheriff’s station discovered the threat around midnight Sunday, after receiving a phone call from a person who saw a picture on Twitter of the boy holding a rifle with the accompanying message stating that he planned to shoot up the school. The police have not released his name as he is a minor.
Lt. Edward Wells of the sheriff’s department told the Tribune that the threat did not state when the shooting would occur. By Monday morning, the tweet was no longer on Twitter.
Following the investigation, deputies arrested the boy in his Diamond Bar home at approximately 1:45 a.m. on Monday and, according to Wells, the .22-caliber rifle was also confiscated.
The suspect’s peers told CBS Los Angeles that the boy, a member of the Panthers’ football team, can be misunderstood at times.
“He’s my best friend,” an unidentified student told CBS Los Angeles. “If you knew him, you would know that he never had the intent of hurting anybody. It was just a big misunderstanding, you could say.”
Although police and district officials surrounding the case have not provided details of the incident, authorities did disclose the teen has had contact with at least one person online.
Fernando Meza, administrative director for pupil and community services at Pomona Unified School District, told the Tribune that the district notified parents and school staff via email and text message of the incident.
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