MINNEAPOLIS – The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office SHIELD team is one of many law enforcement groups around the U.S. working with schools to track down and stop threats.
Lieutenant Dennis Jahnke, who works with the team, knew it could happen – and then it did.
Since a fatal school shooting in Georgia earlier this September, unsubstantiated copycat threats have appeared across the country. This week, a threat went out on social media targeting nearly two dozen St. Paul area schools.
“The minute something pops up earlier this week, we started to get information from partners on our east coast, partners on the south,” Jahnke said. “If your school hits that list, you’ve got to vet it out, you’ve got to speak with law enforcement, you’ve got to collaborate with partners to make sure, is this a viable threat?”
Eventually, police tracked the source of the threat – a 12-year-old girl living in the Twin Cities. She didn’t have the means or the desire to carry out the threat, police say.