Two young students were arrested just one day apart in the same Florida county this week after each allegedly made violent “idiotic threats” against their classmates and teachers.
Anthony Steward, 11, and Micah Swinnie, 10, were both marched out of patrol cars by members of the Volusia Sheriff’s Office for allegedly threatening to kill their teachers and classmates.
Steward, a student at the DeLand Middle School, apparently hijacked a classmate’s Gradebook Communications account and fired off the message “imma shoot you” to seven teachers, according to the sheriff’s office.
The troublemaker was stone-faced as he was led inside the sheriff’s office, according to a chilling video shared on Facebook Thursday. When an officer was securing handcuffs around Steward’s wrists, the boy complained that they felt “real tight.”
The cop swiftly schooled Steward, telling the pint-sized pest that he could have avoid being cuffed altogether if he hadn’t made the purported threats in the first place.
Steward’s booking marked his second visit to the sheriff’s office.
He was also arrested in October for making the exact same threats — again through a classmate’s Gradebook Communications account — against community members at Southwestern Middle School.
Swinnie, a student at Pride Elementary School, was perp-walked Wednesday after he allegedly left a “list of people who i’m gunna kill” at a desk inside a classroom where he also scrawled a promise to bring a gun to school on the whiteboard, according to a post from the sheriff’s office.
“It feels like a confinement in there,” Swinnie said while he exited the police car, his hands cuffed behind his back.
He insisted that he didn’t mean the threat, and his parent assured police that he doesn’t have access to a firearm, the sheriff’s office said.
The little agitator was kept in custody on a felony charge of making a written threat to kill, though it’s unclear if he’ll be formally charged.
Both boys were dressed in school spirit apparel when they were remanded into police custody.
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, fed up after arresting two juveniles on the same day, bashed those who “coddle” kids who “choose to make threats.”
“You can pat them on the head and tell them everything’s going to be alright. My job is to look out for everyone else. These idiotic threats disrupt our schools, eat up time and resources, and increase the chances a real threat slips through the cracks,” Chitwood wrote.
“If you can threaten to shoot 7 teachers you can take a perp walk. Parents, discipline your kids and I won’t have to.”