Uvalde high student accused of threatening shooting at school is arrested

A student has been arrested after allegedly threatening to commit a shooting at Uvalde High School, according to the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District. The threat was made Monday through social media and was reported by an unknown person via the STOPit app, which enables people to anonymously report incidents to schools or employers. The threat was passed on to the Uvalde Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the student accused of making it was taken into custody Monday evening. “We appreciate the swift action taken by both entities to address the situation and remove the threat,” the district said in a written statement addressed to parents and faculty.

The incident comes 10 days after the Uvalde CISD suspended the operations of its entire police department. That action came after parents had protested outside the district’s administration building for 11 days to demand the suspension of all school officers who were involved in law enforcement’s response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24 in which 19 children and two teachers were killed. In late August, the school board fired Pete Arredondo, who was the district’s police chief during the incident at Robb and was widely criticized for how he led that day. Also, on Oct. 6, the day before it suspended police operations, the district fired Crimson Hux Elizondo after media outlets reported that she was under investigation for her role during the shooting at Robb Elementary while she was employed as a DPS agent. Besides the shakeups in its police force, the district directed the installation of 8-foot nonscalable perimeter fencing at its elementary and middle schools. The district said that Uvalde High School will be measured and that a timeline for installing fencing there will be developed “We understand that this message may cause additional stress for some of you; however, we believe it is important to communicate these situations when they occur,” the school district’s statement said. “We will continue to work with state and local law enforcement agencies to help keep our students and staff safe.”