Washington County student’s threat to shoot liberals goes viral on Twitter

A post on Twitter by a Washington County student threatens to shoot liberals, date and location unspecified | Submitted photo, St. George News

ST. GEORGE — A threatening social media post made by a Washington County School District student has gone viral on Twitter while Washington City Police are investigating.

The post was initially made on Snapchat Wednesday, and it was reposted on Twitter by another party Thursday.

The post says: “I would just like all you liberals to know if Biden does get elected into office and he defunds the police nothing will be stopping me from shooting ur guys heads off 2 miles away with my silenced rifle”

In the photo, the boy is holding a firearm. He ends the post with “TRUMP 2020 baby.” As of Wednesday at 3:30 p.m., the tweet has 36,100 likes, 16,100 retweets and 2,600 comments.

Steven Dunham, district communications director, told St. George News the district became aware of the post Wednesday when a student who was concerned about the post told a school administrator.

“A brave student stepped forward and made us aware of this yesterday, and we immediately called police and took action yesterday,” he said. “But it isn’t a specific school threat; it’s just a threat.”

He also added that the school mentioned on the post (Pine View High) is not accurate. He could not give out the name of the school the student attends.

“The child is a student in the district but not at that school,” he said, adding that this is not something they have seen with other students.

A post by a Washington County student threatening to shoot liberals gains over 16,000 retweets, date and location unspecified | Submitted photo, St. George News

Dunham said they began an investigation and turned the incident into the Washington City Police, but he wasn’t sure what the police had yet done.

“This is horrible, because no one should feel unsafe coming into our schools or even just being in our community, and so this is wrong,” he said. “Even though this is not just a school specific threat, this is a threat against people who might have different political beliefs.”

As far as the action taken at the district level, Dunham said he could not release any information but referred St. George News to their Safe School Policy, which outlines measures taken in the case of a student disobeying the accepted rules of conduct.

“We have to provide a safe learning environment for all students. And if we feel that there is an unsafe learning environment for any student, we have to take action.”

With regard to the student who told school administration about the post, Dunham said he was grateful since that is what they tell students to do.

“If you see something, say something,” he said.

St. George News reached out to the Washington City Police but had not yet heard back at the time of publication.

Editor note: The article has been updated to say the social media post was initially made on Snapchat, not Twitter as originally reported.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

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