Rap Song Caused NJ School Lockdown; Teen Faces 10 Years In Jail

CALDWELLS, NJ — Amid a rising climate of fear and anxiety surrounding social media-spawned school threats, a surprising detail has emerged about a recent police investigation into an alleged threat at James Caldwell High School.

It all started with a rap song.

Michael Schmitt, 18, of West Caldwell, a former student at JCHS, was charged with creating a false public alarm due to a “social media threat" on Feb. 24. Authorities originally released sparse details about the nature of the alleged threat, which ended with a SWAT squad at the school and Schmitt’s arrest on false public alarm charges.

Although no classes were in session that Saturday, the incident canceled the school’s “Music Marathon” event, which was supposed to take place that day. It also ignited rumors among students that there was a gun present, which turned out to be false.

Rumors also began to swirl about the cause of the police response. One social media user wrote: “One of my sisters said there was no ‘real’ threat. Rather there was a song about shootings. And someone reported it.”

• See related article: 'Ongoing Investigation' At James Caldwell High School

Following the incident, police arrested Schmitt and placed him in protective custody in a Newark jail cell. Superior Court Judge Peter Ryan later ordered Schmitt released to home detention with electronic monitoring, NJ.com reported.

“There's a lot of people in this court that want you locked up, and they conclude, maybe rightfully so, that you present such a danger that you should be locked up and remain locked up until such time as these matters can be resolved," Ryan said. "Pre-trial services thinks differently and I agree with them."

Now – several months later – Schmitt is facing a 5-to-10-year prison sentence and is still under house arrest, BuzzFeed News reported.

It turned out that the alleged “threat” was related to social media posts about a new song that Schmitt wrote, which was released on Soundcloud, an online music platform. Schmitt’s profile photo on the website shows him pointing a gun at the screen and smiling, BuzzFeed reported.

The song included explicit sexual references and the line, “Pull my gun, kill your f***** head / Now you're dead, go to sleep.” It’s titled: “u lil sluts @ jchs i love u all even tho yall hurt me and i forgive u. i would never hurt u.” No specific names are mentioned in the rap, BuzzFeed stated.

Schmitt posted a Tweet about his song the morning of his arrest which read: “hi sluts get yr face f*****” as well as a Snapchat video with a sample of the new track, BuzzFeed reported.

Police learned of Schmitt’s Twitter post from another student at James Caldwell High School, who also forwarded the Tweet to her mother, who then contacted school officials, according to West Essex Now.

While the lyrics may be crude and offensive, here’s the problem, according to Schmitt… it’s all parody.

“They painted me as a school shooter, and that's terrifying,” Schmitt told BuzzFeed News, insisting that he's just “a weird kid who loves hip-hop” in an overwhelmingly white, conservative suburb and never planned any sort of attack or violence.

“My life is ruined here in this town," Schmitt told the publication. "I don't think my life is ruined in general — I don't. But I feel like here, in this town, I'm done."

JCHS Principal Jim Devlin defended the decision to lockdown and evacuate the school.

“A student associated with our school put a violent song on SoundCloud, which references killing somebody — shooting somebody in the head — and posts a picture of him with a gun, and made a connection to girls at our school," Devlin told BuzzFeed News. "If you put all of that together, it does seem pretty threatening. At that point it's not my job to say, Is it credible? Is it not? We have to protect our students and families."

Devlin’s attitude is one shared by a growing community of law enforcement officials, including the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office (ECPO), which has dominion over Schmitt’s case.

A few days after the JCHS incident, the ECPO held a press conference about school threats in the county. Prosecutors said that they were seeing a “considerable spike” of police investigations into alleged school threats, especially those with roots in social media.

Prosecutors said that police in Essex County investigated three separate instances of teens allegedly making threats against schools in the month immediately following the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The alleged perpetrators ranged in age from 13 to 18-years-old, prosecutors said.

• See related article: School Threat Probes 'Spiking' In Essex County, Officials Say

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