13-Year-Old Boy Charged for Threatening Schools With Bombings, Shootings

WILMETTE, IL — A 13-year-old Wilmette boy is accused of calling in multiple bomb threats to schools and other businesses in the village and surrounding communities in April and June, according to police.

The unidentified boy is charged with seven counts of felony disorderly conduct-false bomb threat in connection with calling several Wilmette schools April 5 and June 7, and threatening to bomb and shoot the buildings, as well as kill certain faculty members, according to a Wilmette police statement released Friday.

The boy also was charged with two counts of felony threat to a school building for allegedly calling in shooting threats June 8 to Avoca West School in Glenview and Crow Island School in Winnetka.

Investigators traced the calls back to a mobile phone app that eventually led to an electronic device owned by the teen. A search warrant was executed, the boy's electronic devices were seized, and police determined he allegedly made the multiple vulgar and threatening phone calls, according to the statement.

RELATED: Crow Island Elementary Locked Down for Suspicious Person Report

In each of these instances, authorities found the teen's threats not to be credible, and he didn't have the means to carry them out, the statement added.

The teen, accompanied by his mother and his lawyer, turned himself in to police Tuesday, July 19. He was in custody at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center until Wednesday, July 20, when he was released to his mother.

Prosecutors also charged the boy with felony abuse of an elderly person and misdemeanor domestic battery after a search of his seized devices uncovered videos allegedly showing the teen abusing his elderly father who was in his care, according to police.

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