Student Faces Charges, Manatee County School Threats Rise Ahead Of TikTok Challenge

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — In recent weeks, Manatee County Schools has seen an uptick in threats to schools within the district, Mike Barber, communications director, said.

“We have had a number of threats at our schools over the past two weeks and it’s picked up here the last couple of days,” he said.

These threats come in the wake of a deadly school shooting in Michigan. A 15-year-old student at Oxford High School killed four students and injured seven other people, including one teacher, on Nov. 30.

“We seem to have an uptick in threats whenever an incident like that occurs,” Barber said. “After Parkland, which obviously was extremely dramatic, especially for people in this state, we had over two dozen threats the following weeks after that.”

Now, law enforcement agencies and school districts across the country are also monitoring a TikTok challenge that’s encouraging students to threaten school violence at their schools on Friday, Dec. 17.

According to some reports, the December challenge is one of several in a string of monthly challenges stemming from the social media platform.

In September, another challenge called "Devious Licks" encouraged raucous acts of vandalism at schools. To participate in the challenge, students and TikTok users shattered mirrors, stole soap dispensers, fire alarms and football field turf, and intentionally clogged toilets, all while filming the antics to post on TikTok.

In the most recent threat to Manatee County Schools, a Carlos E. Haile Middle School student was arrested by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Thursday morning, Barber said. The school sent home a message to parents about the incident.

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The sheriff’s office did not respond to Patch’s request for more information about the incident.

Threats were also made against Haile Middle School and Parrish Community High School last week, WWSB reported.

Barber wouldn’t elaborate on other specific threats made recently to Manatee County Schools but said they mostly have been made against middle and high schools.

Many of the threats “involve social media,” he added. “But we had a few where students overhear other students, or they report what they’ve heard at school or on the school bus.”

Before the pandemic, the school district averaged one to two threats each week during the school year, Barber said. This number dropped during the pandemic.

Despite the TikTok challenge, he doesn’t blame the social media platform for the recent slate of school threats that have been made in Manatee County.

“I think it’s kind of two-fold,” he said. “One, it’s the end of the semester and exams are coming up, and the other is, I think, kids are getting anxious to get away from school and to get to the Christmas break.”

The school district’s security and emergency workers, as well as local law enforcement agencies, “take every one of these threats extremely seriously,” Barber said. “It doesn’t matter how ridiculous it may seem.”

All suspects are interviewed in person and investigators also go to their homes to speak with their parents and to search their house, he said.

He added, “We take all of these things seriously and we are being ever vigilant in terms of threats.”