Man Sentenced in 2014 Threat to Shoot Up Calif. High School
The now 20-year-old Florida man has no known ties to the area and used the identity of a local student to make threats on social media.
In the first half of the 2014-2015 school year, there were 812 reported school threats, according to the National School Safety and Security Services.
A Florida man was sentenced for a 2014 threat to shoot up the Escondido Charter High School in Escondido, California.
Fernando Morales of Miami, now 20, posed as a local teen when he made a post on social media, saying the school would be “shot up” and “come under a barrage of bullets” in a planned January 17 attack, according to the Escondido Patch.
Morales was sentenced to a boot camp for juvenile offenders and could be sent to prison if he does not complete the program, says Lieutenant Justin Murphy of the Escondido Police Department.
Police originally traced the message to an Escondido student from a different school. The threat was deemed credible by police, prompting administrators to close the school.
However, it was quickly determined that someone had hacked the suspected student’s computer.
Lieutenant Neal Griffin says he was “a victim of a very malicious personal attack of identity theft”.
Other area schools were closed as a precaution, including Heritage K-8 Charter, Heritage Digital Academy Middle School and Heritage Digital Academy High School.
It wasn’t until March 18 that detectives alleged that the threat was sent by Morales.
An Escondido detective went to Miami to serve a search warrant along with the FBI and to conduct an interview with Morales.
He was arrested for the crime in May 2015, according to the Times of San Diego.
Authorities have not released a suspected motive and say the man has no ties to the Escondido area.
“The Escondido Police Department wants the public to know that all crimes committed against our community members will be thoroughly investigated, no matter where the suspect resides and will seek prosecution to the fullest extent of the law,” says Murphy.
A study released by the National School Safety and Security Services says there were 812 school threats reported in the first half of the 2014-2015 school year alone, which had risen 158 percent from the prior year.
Of the 812 threats made, one-third were sent electronically by either email or on social media.
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About the Author
Amy Rock, Executive Editor
Amy is Campus Safety’s Executive Editor. Prior to joining the editorial team in 2017, she worked in both events and digital marketing.
Amy has many close relatives and friends who are teachers, motivating her to learn and share as much as she can about campus security. She has a minor in education and has worked with children in several capacities, further deepening her passion for keeping students safe.
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