2 Hudson Valley Students Accused Of Pep-Rally Shooting Threat

Threats against students at Lincoln High School in Yonkers began circulating on social media Sunday. They were quite specific, police said: discussion of a plan to carry out a school shooting during a prep rally Oct. 25, shoot 20 people each, and, with the help of a third person, achieve a total of at least 60 victims.

Two boys have been arrested.

Yonkers police said they began investigating immediately, and quickly recovered multiple social media postings that had been shared on several platforms including Snapchat and Facebook.

They interviewed students and parents and were able to identify the origin of the posts.

A 15-year-old freshman at Lincoln, was primarily responsible, police allege, while a 14-year-old friend of his who is a freshman at a different Yonkers high school shared the messages.

They concluded the threats were limited to social media postings only. A search of the boys' homes and backgrounds yielded no weapons or information that would indicate any means of implementing the threats, police said.

However, given the nature of the threats, the two were arrested Monday. Each is charged with one count of Making a Terroristic Threat, a Class D Violent Felony in the New York State Penal Law.

“The Yonkers Police Department takes any and every threat against our schools and students with the utmost seriousness," Commissioner John J. Mueller said in the arrest announcement. "We will commit every resource to ensure the safety of our communities, especially our youth. Let these arrests be a warning to those young people that engage in online misbehavior, that these types of fear-inducing actions have serious consequences as these two teens have just learned.”

Due to their ages, both students will be processed as juvenile delinquents in the Family Court system; no further identifying information will be released.

The families of both students are cooperating, as are school officials, police said.

“The school district will be relentless in pursuing any individuals who threaten the safety of the students and staff in our schools, and who abuse social media," said schools Superintendent Dr. Edwin M. Quezada. "Their intolerable actions waste valuable Police and District resources, disrupt our schools and create unnecessary fear in the community. The school district works hand-in-hand with the Police and those individuals who generate this fear will be pursued to the full extent of the law.”