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Several students are facing criminal charges after a shooting scare sent a Florida high school into a frenzy last week.
Rumors, lies, and conspiracy theories were swirling online about what happened at Mainland High School on Friday (September 9), according to the Daytona Beach Police Department. The incident began when a threat was written on a bathroom stall on Thursday (September 8). School administrators and authorities interviewed the students filmed walking inside the restroom around the time the graffiti was found.
Officials determined there was no threat, but things spiraled "out of control" the next day.
Investigators say two groups of students “decided to capitalize on the threat” and conspired to create a panic. Police allege the students were caught on camera getting into "specific positions and locations within the cafeteria, timing their actions” while several female students told an administrator someone had a gun.
Another student reportedly ran from the cafeteria, “causing a large crowd to follow him" around the same time.
Officers reviewed surveillance video and no one appeared to have a firearm during the incident.
“This entire incident appears to have been a cruel prank by several students that has now gotten out of control due to internet trolls, misinformed people and in some cases, people that are not even in Florida,” authorities wrote in a lengthy Facebook post.
Detectives spoke to all the students involved, whose stories changed from seeing someone with a gun to "they just heard there was one," according to the statement.
The "pranksters" now have second-degree charges of making a false report concerning the use of firearms in a violent manner pending, Daytona Beach Police wrote. They also recommended these students get expelled from the school.