Hopkins County investigators traced the threat to Missouri – linking it to three students who met through a gaming app, including a a Como-Pickton student.
COMO, Texas — An East Texas student and two, about 500 miles away, from Missouri, are accused of using spoofing to threaten a local middle teacher.
Como-Pickton CISD says a person called a teacher Friday from a spoofed number and threatened to shoot her if she didn’t change the caller’s grade.
“The student suspect has been identified and caught by law enforcement,” CPCISD Superintendent Dr. Greg Bower said. “Let me reiterate that we have zero tolerance for this type of behavior. We want to thank the effort, work, and support of the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Tatum.”
With help from Bower, community members and parents, Hopkins County investigators traced the threat to Saint, Joseph, Missouri – linking it to three students who met through a gaming app, including one who is a Como-Pickton Middle School student.
Bower said the teacher was concerned when they received the text message.
“Something to the effect, if you don’t change my grades, there’s gonna be violence against the school,” Sheriff Lewis Tatum said. “They become online friends, and it just went from there they decided to pay a prank on someone, and it didn’t go very good.”
Bower said they didn’t think there was any serious danger, but school officials treated it as though there could be.
The CPCISD middle school student is now in custody and facing multiple criminal charges. Bower emphasizes that threats of any kind, even those made as jokes, have real consequences.
“The main thing that kids need to know nowadays, and that’s what I emphasize whenever I send out my statement to the community, is it doesn’t matter if it’s a prank or not, the damage is out there,” Bower said. “You know, you, you’ve hurt people, physically, psychologically, you you’ve you’ve affected people in so many different ways that you can’t account for just because you wanted to have a laugh.”
This incident emphasized the importance of parental monitoring and the proactive response.
“Parents need to infringe on their children’s privacy every day, because there’s more than just this,” Tatum said.
Both the sheriff’s office and school officials stress their commitment to keeping campuses safe no matter what.
“We’re 100% protecting those kids in those campuses and those teachers, so we’re gonna deal with it accordingly anytime,” Tatum said.