Threat to Holyoke High deemed hoax; juvenile suspect identified

Yahoo

2 days ago

HOLYOKE — Police have tracked down a juvenile accused of a making a threat to Holyoke High School on social media.
Students first saw the threat last week and notified School Resource Officers Manuel Rivera and Juan Cruz about the post, Holyoke Police Chief Brian Keenan said.
They immediately started investigating the threat, made on Instagram, and determined it was not credible. The original post was deleted but has been passed through screenshots by students and the others in the school community, Keenan said.
'Detectives spoke with the juvenile with a parent present to reinforce the seriousness of posting any type of threat online,' Keenan said.
Police did not release any information about the suspect because of the accused's age or the nature of the post.
'Our department treats any threat to our community seriously and thoroughly investigates each situation to determine if any threat is credible. In this case, thankfully it was not,' Keenan said. 'The safety and well-being of our students and community is paramount. I appreciate the vigilance of the students who brought this post to our officers' attention, and in doing so, the officers were able to quickly identify the person responsible for the post.'
Mayor Joshua Garcia thanked police for their quick action and reinforced that no students or staff were ever in danger.
'I want to assure our community, students, staff and teachers that there is no ongoing threat, and this post was deemed to not be credible,' he said. 'If there was a situation where we received a threat, and it was deemed credible or if it was unclear, we would alert our community immediately.'
Read the original article on MassLive.