Student Arrested for Allegedly Threatening to Shoot LGBT Supporters at School: Police

Threat in Response to Annual ‘Day of Silence’ 

Police say they arrested a student Thursday after he allegedly threatened to shoot LGBT rights supporters at his school. Law enforcement officials released few details, given the student’s age. The Baltimore Sun reports police charged the unnamed juvenile “with making threats of mass violence and disrupting school activity.”

Members of the Gay-Straight Alliance at Severna Park High School in Maryland were handing out rainbow ribbons in observance of the annual “Day of Silence,” which is a national event “that brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools.”

The student allegedly “threatened to shoot people who wore rainbow ribbons in support of gay rights on Monday, according to police and school officials.” 

In a letter the school’s principal told parents the student made “inappropriate” and “disparaging” comments toward members of the GSA, but said the threat was not “credible.”

On the Day of Silence, students, to show support for LGBT people and as a protest to bullying, “take a vow of silence in an effort to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior by illustrating the silencing effect of bullying and harassment on LGBT students and those perceived to be LGBT,” according to GLSEN.

Severna Park High School GSA president Moira Cameron, 17, told the Sun, “Just the fact that he thinks it’s OK to say it in the first place is appalling.” She insists,”It’s not going to stop us.”

 

Image by Michelle Smith via Flickr and a CC license