12-Year-Old Tennessee Boy Arrested for Instagram Post Says He Was Trying To Warn Students of a School Shooting

After posting a screenshot of two people planning to "shoot up" a Nashville school, a 12-year-old DuPont Tyler Middle School student was arrested and charged with threats of mass violence. Although his charges were later dismissed, school officials opted to expel the boy without properly assessing whether the threat was valid or whether he had authored the messages himself. 

Directly following a school shooting at Antioch High School earlier this year, which resulted in the death of two students and injury to a third, Nashville School District officials were on high alert for other potential threats. The day after the shooting, James, a seventh grade student, was flagged by the FBI for a concerning Instagram post. According to ProPublica, the post depicted a text conversation between two individuals: One said they would "shoot up" a Nashville school if the second would attack another. "Yea," the second replied, "I got some other people for other schools." 

When asked about the post, James told school officials he had reposted a screenshot from a Spanish-language news site. He was subsequently arrested and charged with making threats of mass violence. 

Under Tennessee law, when a student is suspected of threatening mass violence, a threat assessment is required "to determine whether the threat of mass violence made by the student was a valid threat." If the director of schools determines the threat is not valid, the school is not allowed to expel the student.

However, records obtained by ProPublica show that school officials failed to conduct a proper threat assessment and missed crucial steps. Melissa Nelson, a national school safety consultant who trains schools on managing threats, told ProPublica that James' assessment was "gross mismanagement of a case." Rather than seek out information to help confirm whether the threat was valid—like notifying and interviewing James' parents—or pursue options provided by the threat assessment tool to deescalate potential future violence, school officials jumped straight to expulsion after he was arrested. 

"Even if a child is expelled, what I always train is: Out of sight, out of mind doesn't help," she said. "Expelling a child doesn't de-escalate the situation or move them off the pathway of violence. A lot of times, it makes it worse." 

John Van Dreal, a former school administrator who helped the Nashville School District set up its current threat assessment process, agreed. Choosing to skip directly to expulsion is "actually about the most dangerous thing you can do for the student," Van Dreal said, "and honestly for the community."

During an appeal hearing, James maintained that he was not the original author of the texts. When asked if he understood that the screenshot in question appeared to be a conversation he, himself, was having, he replied, "I just wanted to let people know, feel heroic. I didn't want more people to get hurt." 

When pressed during that same hearing on why the school chose to expel James without additional investigation, Assistant Principal Angela Post said that it was up to law enforcement, not the school, to investigate the threat. She also admitted that the assessment did not make a determination whether James was the original author of the text, and she couldn't recall whether school staff investigated the origin of the original threat. By her logic, James' arrest was evidence enough that the threat was valid, and therefore, expulsion was necessary. 

But since James' arrest, law enforcement hasn't treated him like a violent threat. After serving a night in a juvenile detention facility, James agreed to six months of pretrial diversion and court supervision. His supervision was lifted earlier than expected after he completed his pretrial diversion terms, and his case has been dismissed. 

However, following his appeal with the Nashville School District, officials found that the decision to immediately expel James "was not a due process violation."

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