Police in Queens, New York, arrested a 16-year-old student at Benjamin Cardozo High School in Bayside after he allegedly posted an Instagram threat saying he was “boutta shoot the school up.” The boy, a 10th grader, posted the message alongside a photo of schoolwork while inside a classroom. The FBI flagged the threat and passed it to the NYPD, who responded to the school late Thursday morning.

The student was quietly removed from his classroom and taken to an empty conference room. Investigators called the phone number tied to the Instagram account, and one of his phones rang. Officers found he had three phones on him, including one locked in the school-issued pouch. After police obtained parental consent to search his bag, they discovered a loaded 9mm Taurus handgun with 13 rounds in the magazine. Authorities said the teen had no criminal history, but it’s not known how he got the gun into the school or where he obtained it. Cardozo High does not use metal detectors.

It’s worth noting the number of phones he carried. Either he’s glued to TikTok, or, more realistically, he could be moving drugs. Multiple phones and a firearm tend to go hand in hand with street-level dealing, which would also explain how a teenager managed to get his hands on a gun.

School shootings, in the form most people think of, tend to happen in suburban or rural areas rather than in large cities like New York, but there’s always an exception. A threat from within a classroom in one of the biggest cities in the world shows how easily the narrative can shift.

As for metal detectors, while their absence is a glaring gap, even schools that have them aren’t guaranteed safety. Unless every student is screened one by one, which is logistically impossible in large schools, determined individuals will still find ways to slip weapons through.

Mayor Eric Adams said after the arrest, “This was a failure of a society that allows 16-year-olds to get so close to shooting up a school and potentially killing classmates and teachers.” For all his reputation as just another allegedly corrupt New York politician, he’s not wrong.

(Sources)

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