A San Antonio man who lives next to an elementary school allegedly told an AI chatbot he planned to get a gun and open fire on the children — triggering an FBI alert and his arrest after the watchful bot warned authorities.
Nathaniel Michael Carrasco, 22, was arrested after investigators linked him to a series of chilling Anthropic AI chatbot queries about attacking Serna Elementary School, according to an arrest affidavit and the San Antonio Express-News and News4 San Antonio.
Companies like Anthropic deploy strict internal guardrails to detect violent threats, child exploitation, and terrorism.
When a user makes a credible threat or plan of violence, Anthropic’s safety filters log the behavior, then hands over the “chat” to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center (NTOC) or regional fusion centers.
The FBI’s National Threat Operations Section alerted San Antonio police on Aug. 28 about threatening queries allegedly made Aug. 11 through Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude.
Among the disturbing searches was a request for the bot to find images of “dead school kids bleeding,” according to the affadavit.
Carrasco allegedly became even more explicit in the chats, declaring that he was “getting a gun as soon as I can” and planned to walk into Serna Elementary and being “shooting up kids,” KENS5 reported.
“I truly do mean my threats,” he allegedly wrote in another message.
The alleged target was alarmingly close to home: Carrasco lives next to Serna Elementary.
Investigators said the FBI was initially able to “tentatively identify” Carrasco as the person behind the messages.
The Southwest Texas Fusion Center (SWTFC) — a center for information sharing and public safety analysis — then obtained emergency disclosures from T-Mobile, Charter Communications and Google that authorities said positively identified him.
Carrasco was arrested by San Antonio police on Aug. 29 shortly after 11 p.m.
He has been charged with making a terroristic threat, a felony, and is being held in the Bexar County jail on $250,000 bond, jail records say.
If convicted, he could face between two and 10 years behind bars.
But the arrest was followed by another troubling development: school officials said they initially had not been told the full nature of the alleged threat.
Serna Elementary School principal Jennifer Lomas addressed worried families on Aug. 31 after details began appearing in news reports, telling them she wanted parents to hear about the situation “direclty from me,” according to KENS5.
Lomas said the school had received only partial information and did not learn that the specific alleged threat was directed at Serna until the details became public in the news.
San Antonio police said detectives began investigating as soon as they learned of the credible threat on Aug. 28, obtained a warrant and arrested Carrasco the following night.
