Carson City sheriff completes social media threat investigation


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The Carson City Sheriff’s Office completed its investigation of social media threats that caused the Carson City School District to cancel school on Friday, and no credible threats were found, according to Sheriff Ken Furlong.
Furlong told the Appeal on Friday morning the CCSO interviewed several students with their families after concerns began circulating online nationally and locally regarding the TikTok “devious licks” social media challenges that have been ongoing for the past several months.
In a press release from the Carson City School District issued mid-Thursday, Friday was designated as “National Shoot Up Your School Day” encouraging students to make threats of violence against their school.
School officials decided to cancel school at 10:30 p.m. Thursday.
Furlong told the Appeal the CCSO holds a zero-tolerance policy of any such threat at any time.
“I can tell you any threat would have been taken very seriously,” Furlong said. “Any level of threat would have resulted in arrest and prosecution. … No threats were received here in Carson City specific in nature.”
According to CCSD’s press release, one post had identified one school by its abbreviations as CHS without referring to the social media profile, a specific city or location.
In September, Carson City School District released a statement about damage to Carson High School, Carson Middle School and Eagle Valley Middle School’s restrooms and property with the month’s challenge to vandalize the property.
Furlong said the department’s school resource officers, who work closely with the district, will continue to remain in communication with the district throughout the winter break, which begins Monday.
“This response does allow for a cooling-off period,” he said.
He also thanked the community for its awareness and concern to call in their concerns.
“We appreciate everyone who has called in or provided us with information,” he added. “We sincerely do appreciate it. That’s what makes a community strong, when we can really rely on the community to be alert and for passing along information to us.”