KNOX COUNTY, Tenn. — Knox County deputies responded to several school threats and a trash fire on Thursday, saying they arrested four more students.
According to KCSO, deputies responded to five school threats, including a mass violence threat made at Cedar Bluff Middle School. Deputies said a seventh grader was arrested. KCSO said a 12-year-old girl at Gibbs Middle School was also arrested for making false reports.
Around 6:15 p.m., KCSO announced it also arrested an 11-year-old girl at Hardin Valley Middle School for threats of mass violence.
Deputies said others might be charged in relation to the threats.
Deputies and juvenile detectives also responded to a trash fire at South-Doyle High School on Thursday. They said they believed a trash can was intentionally set on fire. A 14-year-old student was later arrested for attempted aggravated arson, setting fire to personal property, and vandalism.
The incidents happened during a rash of threats reported across Knox County and the rest of East Tennessee. As of Thursday afternoon, more than two dozen people have been charged for making threats in the past week. The majority of those people were students in their young teens.
Students convicted of threatening violence against schools can face a variety of punishments, such as spending time in jail and losing their driving privileges for some time. They could also be expelled from school for up to a year.
Dozens of students were arrested and charged with threatening violence in East Tennessee schools in recent days, authorities said.
On Sep. 13, the Knox County Sheriff's Office released a joint statement with the Tennessee Sheriff's Association stating that those responsible for making school threats will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Threats of violence against a school are regarded as a class E felony offense, deputies said.
KCSO and TSA urge parents to monitor what their children post on social media and to talk with them about the seriousness of online threats.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent also warned making a false threat can land a person in prison for a maximum of five years.
"There definitely can be some severe consequences, where a young person ends up with a felony record as a result of these postings and nobody wants to start their adult life with that type of record, just off the start," said an FBI special agent. "Utilizing a lot of techniques that, through the legal system and through the courts and the authorization, we can identify a lot of folks that think that they are just behind a keyboard and can be hidden."