A Florida teenager has been arrested after being accused of making online threats to shoot up his school using his father’s gun.
In body camera video released by the Volusia County Sheriff Office, deputies interview the 15-year-old boy and his mother outside their home before placing him under arrest last Friday.
A deputy asked the boy if he posted online that “I Dalton Barnhart vow to bring my fathers m15 to school and kill 7 people at a minimum.” The FBI flagged the comment to the sheriff’s office.
The boy said he does not remember posting the comment, but the deputy read the username of the account that posted the message, which belonged to him.
“But he’s just a little kid playing a video game,” the boy’s mother told the deputy after he explained why they were placing him under arrest.
“That is why the FBI and the local law enforcement are spending so much time, because how do we know he’s not going to be like the kid from Parkland, or he’s not going to be like the kid that shot up Sandy Hook? We don’t know that,” the deputy said. The deputy lamented that much of his time is taken up arresting young people for making violent threats.
The deputy pointed out the Florida law that states no one can make a written threat to cause a mass shooting or act of terror. The boy is facing a felony charge.
“He’s just a little boy,” the tearful mother replied. “He didn’t do anything wrong! Yes, he’s 15, but he’s still a little boy. He’s not one of those crazy people out there doing stuff … he shouldn’t be treated as though he’s a terrorist or something because he made a silly statement on a stupid video game.”
The mother revealed she has a gun in the house after the deputy asked her. “He has hands and feet. He can grab your gun and do something,” he said.
The mom continued to insist her son was not the type of person who would commit a shooting.
“Joke or not, these types of comments are felonies under the law,” the sheriff’s office said. “After the mass violence we’ve seen in Florida and across the country, law enforcement officers have a responsibility to investigate and charge those who choose to make these types of threatening statements.”
