NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Tennessee Dept. of Safety and Homeland Security investigated 125 school threats last week alone, and that’s just the number reported to the state.
Tennessee Homeland Security agents have investigated 321 reports of school threats from Aug. 1 to Sept. 14., according to the deputy commissioner of Homeland Security, Greg Mays. However, the actual number of threats made against TN schools is likely higher because not every threat is reported to the state.
Mays told News 2 social media has likely made it easier to make school threats and repost ones that were previously debunked, which has become a recent trend in Tennessee and nationwide.
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“Something will come up on social media, it will be investigated and determined not credible, and then it will be seen by someone in another part of the state, cut, pasted, posted, and here we go again,” Mays said. “We’re working on ways to quickly identify duplicate threats like that and tamp down the anxiety in the community.”