Madison Jr. High School students make shooting threat to be “cool”

Rexburg Police said a group of students were trying to be “cool” when they told friends not to attend school on April 20th as they were going to “shoot up the school.”

The students were from Madison Jr. High School.

The statement was made while they were playing video games online back in February or early March, Rexburg Police chief Shane Turman said. A resource officer found out about the threat on Friday afternoon from a parent who was concerned.

Police interviewed and investigated six students. Police determined the student who originally made the statement was trying to be “cool.” The students said they never meant what they said.

A parent found out about the statement when talking with their child who heard about it from another child.

Police said the resource officer found out just as school was getting out on Friday and spent the weekend investigating and is one reason why parents were not notified until today.

It was determined none of the students had access to weapons.

Turman said even though this threat wasn’t credible, parents need to have a conversation with their kids because of the world we live in.

“I think one of the conversations all parents should have with their kids, and I’ve had it with my daughter. If something were to happen in your school. ‘what would you do’ and when I first had that conversation she said ‘I don’t know Dad’. So I have asked her to walk through the school and identify all the exits and where she can get out and look at windows and see how she could get out of windows if she needed to do that,” said Turman.

The school district and the student’s parents are discussing what punishment the students will face. The police chief says the prosecutor will make the decision on whether or not they are charged.