Uvalde high school students faced gun threat weeks after shooting: Report

Uvalde High School students were allegedly threatened by a 17-year-old, via Snapchat messages containing an image of a toy gun. Police arrested Luis Ortiz Jr, and charged him with raising a false alarm or a reported emergency, as per Uvalde Leader-News. 

Five current and former students of the high school were targeted, and officials scheduled a mental health evaluation, following which Ortiz was released. The incident occurred two weeks after an assailant had walked into Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School and shot up the place, killing 19 children and two adults. 

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Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez reportedly noted that he was contacted by the currently embattled Pete Arredondo, who’s in charge of the consolidated school district. He was reportedly alerted about the images by concerned parents and informed investigators that Ortiz’s messages threatened to “end” those who hurt him. The messages also allegedly included the picture of a hand holding a firearm. 

“There were some threats made, and our investigators jumped on it quickly and narrowed it down to this individual”, Rodriguez said to Leader-News, adding, “Not only is he going to be held accountable for what he did, but we’re also trying to help him.”

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Meanwhile, the paper reported Uvalde Police Lieutenant Mariano Pargas Jr saying that Ortiz noted “he wasn’t going to harm anybody, it was just something he said, but he never intended to harm anybody”. He added that the teenager didn’t own a gun, and the weapon in the pictures was a Glock airsoft pistol, belonging to one of Ortiz’s friends. 

If convicted for making the alleged threats, Ortiz would face two years in prison, as well as a fine of $10,000. 

In the wake of the Uvalde school shooting, even as the US debated about gun control, there was a wave of arrests across states where others had threatened gun violence in schools.