December 12, 2021
By: Dwayne Page
A 13-year-old DeKalb West School student was taken into custody by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department Sunday after investigators learned that the 8th grader was threatening to bring a gun to school to shoot a teacher.
Sheriff Patrick Ray said the boy, who lives within two miles of the school at Liberty, was taken from his home Sunday evening and placed in a juvenile detention center in Cookeville. He will be charged in a juvenile petition with threat of assault to shoot a teacher. He will make an appearance later this week in juvenile court.
“Director of Schools Patrick Cripps called me today (Sunday) at 3:30 p.m. and said that DeKalb West School Principal Sabrina Farler had contacted him about a child planning to bring a gun to school” said Sheriff Ray.
“I immediately got the school’s SRO and a detective to go find the child. He was at home with his mother and step-father. The SRO and detective questioned the boy and he admitted to making the threat although he said it was done in anger and that he really didn’t mean it after he calmed down. The boy was taken into custody and transferred to the Cookeville detention center,” said Sheriff Ray.
Both the SRO and detective conducted a sweep of the boy’s home and no weapons were found. Sheriff Ray said the parents were cooperative. There are no plans to file charges against them.
Sheriff Ray said although the threat no longer exists there will be extra officers at DeKalb West School Monday and parents should not be afraid to send their children to school.
“I want to commend the student who came forward to report this threat and I encourage any student with information about any potential threat in the future to contact the school’s SRO, teachers, principals, or parents to report it. We take all threats seriously,” said Sheriff Ray.
Director of Schools Cripps added his thanks to everyone involved from the school level to the sheriff’s department for their fast action in getting to the bottom of this threat
“I appreciate Principal Farler and Assistant Principal Joey Agee for immediately following through on our established protocols when learning of the threat and Sheriff Ray along with Detective Stephen Barrett and DWS School Resource Officer Billy Tiner who responded quickly and kept us in the loop the whole way,” he said. “I also join Sheriff Ray in commending the student who reported this. When students hear of these kinds of threats being made, we want them to feel like they can come to us so we can stop anything that potentially could happen and get the person who makes the threat the help or whatever they may need as well. The safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff is of the utmost importance and we want to ensure everyone that we are doing everything we can to make the schools as safe as possible,” said Director Cripps.