A series of threats on social media to shoot up several local schools and a company headquarters in Burnaby Tuesday afternoon, has led to an arrest.
Burnaby RCMP confirmed they made one arrest in relation to violent threats made from a Twitter account against various schools and the Telus office in Burnaby, and are recommending charges.
However, police were saying little about the person arrested, including where they are from or the motive behind threatening Burnaby institutions.
The incidents began Tuesday afternoon from a Twitter account the NOW is not identifying, in which the person threatened “to come into the schools with an AR-15 and kill every person I see.”
The threat was directed at the Burnaby School District’s Twitter account.
Several other threatening tweets followed, including one in response to a Burnaby NOW tweet: “@BurnabyNOW_News I'm shooting up multiple @burnabyschools today with an AR-15, get news crews on the scene immediately.”
There were also threats to shoot up the Telus office and SFU.
RCMP Cpl. Daniela Panesar said none of threats turned out to be true, but they were taken seriously and investigated.
With charges pending against the suspect, she noted anyone caught taking part in a similar act will be charged criminally for essentially false reporting to police.
“It’s obviously very concerning because it’s taking away our resources from really legitimate files that are coming in,” Panesar told the NOW.
Last year, a Coquitlam teen pled guilty to 23 charges, including nine offences for criminal harassment, for a number of "swatting" calls to police and law enforcement agencies in both Canada and the United States.
"Swatting" involves tricking emergency responders (a SWAT team) into deploying to a location where no emergency is taking place.
The 17 year old was handed a sentence of 16 months in youth custody and another eight months to be served under supervision in the community.
