FORT WHITE — A Fort White High School student was arrested Monday for posting a school threat on social media.
The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office charged 17-year-old Christopher Smith Jr. with a second-degree felony for posting the threat. According to a CCSO release, no weapons were found on Smith.
According to the CCSO, the school resource deputy at Fort White was alerted to the threatening post that said “We finna shoot that up Columbia County” around 11:30 a.m. Monday.
The threat was determined to be separate from threats made Sunday that an investigation showed was from a Madison County student.
According to the CCSO release, the resource officer was familiar with the social media account and believed it belonged to a current student, who was immediately brought in for questioning and further investigation.
During the interview process, the student admitted to posting the threat of a shooting on his Instagram account, the release said.
"These social media posts will not be tolerated,” Sheriff Mark Hunter said in the release. “We will treat these types of posts with the utmost urgency and deal with the suspects swiftly and seriously. We ask parents to please monitor their children's social media activity and stress the importance of responsible usage on these platforms. I also want to applaud the student who came forward to report this information so we could deal with it accordingly."