PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis offered his thoughts on the recent growth in online threats toward schools in the state during a roundtable discussion Thursday in Pinellas Park.
The governor commended local police departments and law enforcement agencies for taking the threats "very seriously."
"It is not a joke to threaten violence at a school," DeSantis said. "Some people think that that's funny, some people think that they can get attention from that... In Florida, if you're doing that, you're going to be held accountable."
Nearly every county in the Tampa Bay area is seeing an alarming rise in school threats. Some of the most recent instances saw an 11-year-old and two 14-year-olds arrested for threats against schools in Manatee County.
In addition, a shooting threat last week at Newsome High School in Hillsborough County put the building on lockdown for several hours. That incident led to Hillsborough deputies offering a $1,000 reward for any information on the person responsible for making the threat.
One Florida sheriff, Volusia County's Michael Chitwood, recently made national headlines for releasing the mugshot of an 11-year-old charged with making a school shooting threat. The sheriff also warned students and parents that his agency would start sharing the pictures of students caught issuing threats of violence, adding that images of the parents would be shown, too.
The governor made note of Chitwood's response, as well as the efforts of Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister.
"I've been very pleased to see a very robust response on the local level," DeSantis said. "We've got a lot of folks who are very, very steadfast in policing this stuff."