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Two Students Charged With Threatening Faculty

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TBO Staff

Published: September 7, 2007

LAKELAND – Two George Jenkins High School students were charged Friday with sending threatening emails to four faculty members, Polk County sheriff's deputies said.

The students, ages 18 and 14, wanted to get out of school for the day, deputies said.

The two arrests in Polk County come one day after three Tampa teenagers threatened to burn a Hillsborough County high school.

A George Jenkins' school secretary, librarian, teacher and dean of students received emails Thursday deputies described as containing threats. They either stated a bomb in the school would detonate during the day or someone with a gun at school would harm them.

A forensic detective assigned to check the faculty members' computers traced the emails to Brandon Sidney Johnson, 18, and a 14-year-old girl, both of Lakeland, a Polk County sheriff's news release said.

The 14-year-old is not being named because of her age.

The students told detectives they wanted to get out of school but had no intentions of following through on the threats, the news release said. Johnson sent three emails, and the 14-year-old was responsible for one.

Both students were charged with making a false report of a bomb or explosive and writing a threat to kill or injure. Johnson was booked into the Polk County Jail. The 14-year-old was taken to the juvenile assessment center.

According to the release, Sheriff Grady Judd reminds students and parents making threats to harm another student or faculty member at school would result in a felony arrest.

""We take any threat within a school very seriously, and we will not rest until those responsible are caught,'' Judd wrote.

A day earlier, three teens in Tampa were charged with threatening to burn Freedom High School with a gas explosion.

Tampa police said Mark Stapleton, 16; John Doan, 17; and a 15-year-old boy told investigators they had discussed turning on all the Bunsen burners in a science laboratory and lighting a match. The 15-year-old is not being named because of his age.

A concerned parent initially called authorities after her daugther told her Stapleton had made threats. Police said Stapleton told a classmate he was going to bring a gun to school and shoot specific students, a teacher and himself.

Detectives interviewed Stapleton at the school, where he mentioned two other students involved.

Police charged the trio with making a threat of discharging a destructive device on school property and disrupting a school function.

The Tampa teens were suspended from school for 10 days.

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