MIAMI – A boy allegedly threatened to kill the 17 students in his sixth-grade class because he was a victim of bullying at a religious private school in Miami.
The 12-year-old boy, who is also active with the Boy Scouts, is a student at the Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic School, an Archdiocese of Miami school near the East Little Havana and Brickell neighborhoods.
“Accommodations have been made for him to attend a new school,” Attorney Greg Gonzalez said, while representing the boy during a children’s court hearing Wednesday on Zoom, in front of Circuit Judge Scott M. Bernstein.
Miami police officers arrested the boy on Monday at his mother’s apartment and took him to the Miami-Dade County Juvenile Services Department.
Detectives reported he was at his father’s home on Friday playing with his Xbox. The gaming console has access to the internet, so he used it to allegedly tell other players that he wanted to get a gun to shoot at kids in his classroom or beat them with brass knuckles. He identified a girl as one of his targets, police said.
“This has been investigated. There is nothing here, so it was a surprise he was arrested,” Gonzalez said in court.
After the threat on Xbox, detectives also found the boy had published videos on Snapchat and TikTok showing “a bully” getting shot and mentioning that “the whole class is scared,” according to the arrest report. They also got a hold of a drawing the boy was keeping in his locker showing a person bleeding from the face and chest.
“I kill you myself even if is the last thing I ever do,” the boy wrote next to the cartoon, according to the arrest form.
Bernstein ordered a psychological evaluation. He also decided to place the boy under house arrest with an electronic monitor and ordered him to stay away from using the internet and to abstain from using social media, and his Xbox.
The boy is facing a second-degree felony charge of written threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism.
Read the arrest form’s narrative
Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editors Emily Hales and Aura Martinez contributed to this report.