Thanks to help from Julian Edelman, police in a small Michigan town have thwarted the potential threat of a school shooting.
As reported by the New York Times on Wednesday, Edelman received a tip in his Instagram direct messages about a comment that threatened to attack a middle school near Port Huron, Michigan. The message read: “Dude, there is a kid in your comment section says he [is] going to shoot up a school, I think you should alert the authority.”
And sure enough, Edelman’s assistant Shannen Moen went through the comments and found this one: “I’m going to shoot my school up watch the news.”
Edelman credited his follower’s original message for sparking the action that led the police to thwart a potential tragedy.
“Thankfully, this kid said something,” said Edelman. “We’re going to send him something, a care package, just for his work. He’s the real hero.”
Julian Edelman (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images)
Authorities traced the threatening comment back to a 14-year-old boy in Port Huron, who admitted to posting the threat on Instagram. Police also found two rifles that reportedly belonged to his mother.
Police charged the boy with making a false report of a threat of terrorism, which could result in up to four years in jail. He’s in a juvenile-detention center and has already had one court hearing, according to the N.Y. Times.
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Edelman said he was in Texas visiting his now-former teammate, Danny Amendola, when he got the original message. Kudos to “jesseyi3” for alerting him to the original threat, and to Edelman and his assistant for being vigilant.