TCSO Arrests Juvenile For Racist Threats In YouTube Video

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office on Friday said a juvenile has been taken into custody and charged after being accused of making online threats to carry out a school shooting in Northport during a YouTube video that has circulated this week.

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TCSO says investigators were notified of the threat — particularly the words of the young man who said he planned to shoot Black elementary school students — and followed up on leads before eventfully establishing probable cause to arrest the juvenile suspect today.

Few other details, if any, will be released about the suspect due to a law passed in 2021 by the Alabama legislature that prohibits police from releasing any identifying information concerning juvenile defendants, such as photographs, likeness and personal information.

Conversely, TCSS has cited federal student privacy laws that limit what information a school system can disclose with respect to disciplinary measures for an individual student.

After receiving a deluge of concerns from parents and those in the community over the lack of details regarding the video, Tuscaloosa County School System Superintendent Keri Johnson said it was incorrect for anyone in the community to equate the lack of public details with inaction on the part of the school system.

"When an investigation finds a threat to be 'not credible,' that means there is no evidence of an imminent plan to carry out a threat," she said. "However, our Code of Conduct carries serious consequences for threats, regardless of whether intent exists to carry out the threat. Students should understand that if they make a threat toward our schools, whether they mean it or not, they will face the same consequences."

ALSO READ: TCSS Clarifies Situation After Threatening YouTube Video Surfaces

It remains unclear at this time if the young man who threatened to conduct the school shooting in the video is a TCSS student.

As Patch previously reported on Friday, Johnson explained that TCSS officially intentionally did not repost or share the link to the video that contained the threat, not to be vague, but so as to not contribute to the spread of such content that could influence copy-cat behavior.

TCSS also elaborated by saying the individual who initially posted the video as part of an online web show has since added a comment to the post saying he was contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and "chose to remove the threatening language from his video."

This is a developing story. Follow Tuscaloosa Patch for more details.