15-Year-Old Cobb Girl Arrested For School Threats

MARIETTA, GA — A 15-year-old girl has been arrested for what police say were false threats of gun violence at a Cobb County high school.

The girl made the threats on Wednesday, according to Cobb County Police spokesman Sgt. Wayne Delk. They were aimed at South Cobb High School in Austell, he said.

While police were not releasing details of the threats, they say the girl is not believed to have had the ability to actually carry them out.

Schools around metro Atlanta and throughout the United States have seen an increase in threats of violence in the wake of the Valentine's Day mass-shooting at a school in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 people and wounded another 16.

"Although the majority of these threats are fake and without any true merit, they are still handled as legitimate threats by law enforcement agencies until the evidence uncovered shows them to not be valid," Cobb County Police said in a news release.

In the release, Cobb County Police Chief Mike Register noted that all threats to schools will be treated as real, that they are criminal offenses even if the people who make them don't intend to carry them out and that juveniles will be arrested and prosecuted just as adults would.

Cobb County Schools police are expected to bring charges in the case. A spokeswoman for the school system did not immediately reply to a request for comment Friday morning.

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