Disturbing Post Leads To Police Presence At Scarsdale High School

SCARSDALE, NY — A disturbing message posted on social media prompted a police presence at Scarsdale High School Tuesday. Police said a former student posted on Instagram that other students shouldn’t go to school Tuesday.

An emoji of a gun was included by another former student in a repost of the original message on a group chat app, News 12 said.

The former student, who sent the first post and is attending school in Rockland County, is developmentally challenged and doesn’t have access to firearms, authorities said.

Attendance was down in the district Tuesday, News 12 said, in spite of the fact that the Scarsdale High School principal sent a letter to parents Monday night that said there was no imminent threat.

Threats in the past few days in the Hudson Valley have included the Harvey School in Katonah and the Port Jervis, Dover, Wappinger, Hyde Park and Valhalla districts.

Schools across the nation have been on high alert since 17 people, many of them students, were killed and 16 more injured in a Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Threats to schools, many of them turning out to be unsubstantiated, have skyrocketed.

According to The Educator's School Safety Network, there have been 532 school-based threats or violent incidents in the U.S. since the Parkland shooting — an average of 88.7 per school day. In all, 490 schools in 49 states have been threatened or had actual violence happen, according to the group.

Read News 12 here.

Image via Shutterstock.