Judge denies request to release 11-year-old charged in Port Orange school threats
DAYTONA BEACH — The 11-year-old boy accused of threatening to shoot up one of two Port Orange schools last week will remain in custody after a judge denied his attorney’s request for home confinement release Monday morning.
Circuit Judge David S. Wainer III denied the request based on the boy’s Detention Risk Assessment Instrument (or DRAI) score of 17.
“Seventeen is a significantly high score,” Wainer said. “I have held children in detention for scores lower than that.”
The boy made his appearance via video, while his attorney, mother, family members and other supporters packed the courtroom at the Volusia County Courthouse Annex on Orange Avenue in Daytona Beach.
Volusia Sheriff’s Office deputies said they recovered numerous airsoft rifles, pistols and fake ammunition along with knives, swords and other weapons a student at Creekside Middle School was showing off to other students in a video and making threats to kill.
According to a Volusia Sheriff’s Office social media post made Sept. 16, the 11-year-old threatened to shoot up Creekside Middle School or Silver Sands Middle School in Port Orange. Upon his arrest, deputies recovered a number of airsoft rifles, pistols and fake ammunition along with knives, swords and other weapons he was showing off to other students in a video.
Deputies also found that the 11-year-old had written a list of names and targets, the post added.
The boy was charged with felony written threat of a mass shooting. The News-Journal is not naming him because he hasn’t been charged as an adult.
“For down the road, what concerns me most is not the fake weaponry, although I wouldn’t advise that,” Wainer said. “It’s the list. It’s getting that far down the trail to where you are identifying people.”
Wainer said the court would revisit the question during the boy’s next scheduled hearing Sept. 30.
Mother pleads for child’s release
Prior to the judge’s decision, the boy’s attorney, Don Dempsey, argued several points in favor of his release.
One such point was that the boy never made a “threat in writing.”
When Wainer asked about the alleged list, Dempsey said “it was just a list with a name and that person’s sister on the list.”
Family and friends of the 11-year-old boy accused of threatening shootings at one of two Port Orange schools cry following the ruling by Circuit Judge David S. Wainer III, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, at the Volusia County Courthouse Annex in Daytona Beach.
“There was nothing in writing saying (the boy) would do anything to these people whatsoever,” he added. “There was nothing in writing as to what his intent was to do with these people.”
He also argued that the weapons and list don’t amount to a “true threat,” which, as defined by the jury instructions, “is a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of violence.”
Dempsey pointed to the boy’s interview with police, during which he told deputies it was all a joke.
Dempsey also pointed to the boy’s age, his “toy” guns, his record as “B” student at school and the fact that he has been enrolled in home-schooling and wouldn’t be allowed back in school.
The attorney then asked the boy’s mother to speak on her son’s character and conduct. Nearly 40 other people accompanied her in the courtroom in support of the 11-year-old.
“This is the kindest, sweetest child,” the boy’s mother said as she fought back tears. “He has never been in a fight; he won’t say the word ‘hate’ or ‘stupid;’ this is a child that spends his weekends picking up trash on the beach. He has never been in any trouble.”
Family and friends of the 11-year-old boy accused of threatening shootings at one of two Port Orange schools stand and raise their hands in support of the boy, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, during a hearing at the Volusia County Courthouse Annex in Daytona Beach.
She said the toy weapons were given to him by a man in their neighborhood who had sold the boy a Nerf gun.
“These guns are inoperable — they don’t even work,” she said.
As for the list, she claimed that her son was “influenced” by other children to write the names on the list, which, she said, the boy told deputies he knew was “wrong.”
At one point, the approximately 40 people in the gallery stood up and raised their hands after Dempsey asked them who was there on behalf of the 11-year-old and in favor of his release.
Kristin DePaula with the State Attorney’s Office said the prosecution could not “agree to his release at this time” based on the boy’s DRAI score.
11-year-old ‘perp-walked’ after arrest
The case against the 11-year-old, as well as the other several recent cases involving school shooting threats made by students, have drawn national attention over the last week.
Before the 11-year-old’s arrest, Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood said at a press conference that he would make public the names and photos of minors making school threats and went as far as saying that he would “perp walk” the students and parents if necessary.
The sheriff then released the boy’s name and a video where he appears in handcuffs and later in ankle chains.
Chitwood said he was taking the measure because fake shooting threats to schools were “absolutely out of control.”
Two days after the 11-year-old’s arrest, the sheriff’s office arrested two more students accused of making threats against Taylor Middle-High School in Pierson.
‘Perp walks’: Chitwood’s ‘outing’ of minor offenders is not new, but it may have drawn the most publicity
More than 200 threats have been tallied into the FortifyFL app this year, according to Chitwood.
“We are wasting time and resources on this BS that disrupts our schools and lives,” Chitwood wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday. “It’s not fair to the 99% of kids who are doing the right thing.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida boy, 11, charged in school threats, denied release
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