A St. Joseph man is considered a person of interest in threats made against students in numerous states.
Officer Ron Reardon with the Riverside Ohio Police Department said on September 29 in Ohio many students in the age range of 11 and 13 were receiving direct threats on their Facebook and Twitter accounts in relation to a social media account “Aint Clownin Around.”
“We found out on Sept. 30, on the day that they threats were supposed to take place. I think the post said that the killing and the kidnapping of students and teachers were going to occur at 2:30 on Friday, Sept. 30th which gave us about four hours to prepare for that time frame,” Reardon said. “So we made emergency contacts with Facebook and Suddenlink Communications out there in Missouri. They were very helpful and very quick with the responses which allowed us to obtain email address, IP addresses and finally the address where it’s all located.”
Reardon said once they discovered that the IP Address was located to the St. Joseph area he began working with the St. Joseph Police Department.
Last week, officers with the St. Joseph Police Department arrested a 27-year-old St. Joseph man in connection with the investigation of similar threats made against the St. Joseph School District during the same time period as the threats made in Ohio.
Reardon said the man arrested is being investigated as a person of interest in connection with similar threats made in at least three counties in Ohio, as well as jurisdictions in New Jersey, and Georgia.
“Some of what I’ve read on the news clippings is some of them immediately deemed them not credible, the ones that I did read that are investigating I will be forwarding everything I have so they can expedite the process of doing what they need to do with this individual,” Reardon said.
Officer Reardon told the St. Joseph Post he is still in the process of investigating the case to submit a case to the prosecutor’s officer in Ohio for consideration of charges.
“We’re making sure that we have all of the elements covered before we submit it to the prosecutor’s office,” Reardon said. “I just received the interviews and some additional information from St. Joseph today. It’s kind of hard when you’re working across lines.”
The St. Joseph Police Department said last week it submitted the case to the Buchanan County Prosecuting Attorney’s office for consideration of charges. As of Monday charges have not been filed.
Reardon said it’s still unclear if the threats were legitimate.
“I do know when they surrounded the house and made entry they did find loaded assault weapons with a bunch of ammo in the house,” Reardon said. “That’s the problem with him being in Missouri and us being in Ohio is I have to review the sit-down interviews that the detective over there had with this individual to determine for myself if I think they were credible or not.”
Reardon said the man arrested does have a lengthy criminal background but as charges have not been filed he cannot reveal it at this point.