Only five days after the Parkland, Fla., shooting happened, 18-year-old Timothy Felker was arrested and charged with second-degree terroristic threats after openly promising to shoot his classmates at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, Ky.
The mass school shooting was prevented because in that case, law enforcement followed up on an online tip left February 16 on the STOP (Safety Tipline Online Prevention) tipline. According to court documents, the tipster said that Felker “owns a gun and constantly talks about killing himself/shooting up the school. He tells specific people he would shoot them first and then shoot up the classroom.”
Police visited his home on Feb. 17, but he was out of town. They then detained him at the airport upon his return home on Feb. 19.
The big takeaway here is that when law enforcement received a tip about a possible mass shooter, they promptly followed up on it and remained persistent. You definitely have to tip your hat to them, especially in light of the failures of both the FBI and the Broward County sheriff’s office before the Parkland shooting occurred on Feb. 14.
However, a new detail emerged this week: Police testified on Monday that Felker had purchased an AR-15 and 500 rounds of ammunition in December 2017 with money his mother gave him for a tattoo.
Whether his mother knew about her son’s purchase is incredibly concerning, considering she told police she had no idea her son was making these threats to his classmates.
But we should reserve judgment of the mother over the intentions and actions of her son. We simply don’t know what type of relationship they had, and what the family dynamic was — whether Felker’s father was present or if he had any siblings. Whatever the case may be, Felker is a reminder to all parents to be actively involved in their children’s lives and for families to step up and lend support to each other when they’re going through difficult periods of their life.
Felker didn’t have to go down this path, but it would have helped to have someone there to stop him from even considering the thought of shooting up his school.
