Bellevue teens arrested for threatening school shootings on social media

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Two juveniles were arrested by Bellevue police Tuesday morning after making threats over the weekend to fatally shoot multiple girls at their high schools.

Around 10:30 p.m. Monday, Bellevue police responded to a call by three girls who claimed they received "repeated death threats" by two juveniles, one boy and one girl.

The victims said both juveniles made threats on social media that they would find the girls at their high schools — Newport, Sammamish and Bellevue — and shoot them on Tuesday, police said. The girls told police the boy suspect waved what appeared to be a firearm and also showed a loaded magazine on video.

"Through our investigation, we discovered the subjects knew one another and it was some sort of disagreement that kept escalating and building and then turned into threats of violence," Bellevue Police Department Captain Shearer said.

Police said as the social media threats escalated over the weekend, the girls realized the threat of a gun being used against them was both "credible and imminent."

"In our search warrant we found several guns and guns that were used in the videos," Shearer said. "They were waving guns, they were extracting the magazines with bullets inside so the threats were very credible."

Police said they developed probable cause to arrest both juvenile suspects. After searching the girl suspect's home, officers also checked the boy suspect's home, according to officials. The parents of the boy suspect told police both of them were inside but refused to let police inside.

All of us – young people, parents, and everyone in the community – need to take threats of violence seriously, but especially threats of gun violence – whether it’s in person or online,” said Shelby Shearer, captain of the Bellevue Police Department. “Fortunately, with timely and critical help from the community, the Bellevue PD was able to interrupt this escalation of threats, get the two people making them into custody, and get their firearms away from them before we had a tragedy in our community.

Around 1:35 a.m. Tuesday, while police were in the process of getting a search warrant for the home, the girl suspect attempted to escape the location through the back door, according to officials. Police arrested both the girl and boy shortly after without incident, police said.

"We very much feel like we stopped something bad from happening," Shearer said. "As parents, we must pay attention to what is happening and talk to our kids about it."

Bellevue police later served a search warrant on the home and successfully recovered multiple guns and ammunition inside, according to police.

Police said this is still an open investigation, and Bellevue police have no information to suggest the two juvenile's threats were random or that there's any threat to the community.