CUDAHY, Wis. — A 16-year-old girl may face legal consequences after Cudahy Police say she made a social media post threatening to shoot up Cudahy High School.
Police said they received a report Monday night of an Instagram post showing a rifle and a violent caption. Investigators say it was removed within 30 minutes, but it sparked a series of actions that led to her arrest.
Police coordinated a response with Cudahy School District staff. The teen accused of posting the violent threat was taken to the Juvenile Detention Center.
Using a computer to threaten to hurt someone is a Class B misdemeanor that carries up to 90 days in jail. If someone is trying to shut down a school, they could face a terrorist threat charge, a Class I felony with a max 3.5-year prison sentence and 1.5-year initial confinement.
Mark Hudson and his wife felt they had to take the social media threat seriously. They kept their son home Tuesday.
"It just hasn't been a joke so many times that we weren't going to mess around," Hudson said.
The Cudahy news came shortly after Oak Creek High School was evacuated for a bomb threat.
Oak Creek Police determined the buildings were safe and said they are pursuing a criminal investigation.
"Every parent across the nation deserves to feel safe about their children being in school," Trish Kilpin, director for the Wisconsin Department of Justice's Office of School Safety said.
The office runs a threat reporting line called "Speak Up Speak Out." Kilpin said the line got six calls about the Cudahy incident on Monday.
Since January 2023, the SUSO reporting line received 65 tips for a planned school attack, surpassing all of 2022 when they had 54 and 2021 when 40 were reported.
2023 DOJ data shows that line also got 60 tips for guns/weapons, 7 tips for explosives, and 23 tips for a knife.
"We take every one of those as an opportunity to integrate early. Make sure that we prevent violence and get interventions for that youth that's struggling," Kilpin said.
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