BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — A Hernando County girl was arrested for threatening to bomb her friend's school in text messages sent Friday morning, according to the sheriff's office.
Deputies say a student at Explorer K-8 in Spring Hill went to the school's assistant principal after he received calls and text messages from an unknown number.
The student said when he answered the phone, the caller made a statement about working in a convenience store and then began laughing. The student texted the caller to ask who it was and received multiple messages in reply, including a threat to "bomb your school" with specific information about the school's location, the sheriff's office said in a statement.
The Explorer K-8 school resource officer contacted the Hernando County Sheriff's Office to complete bomb threat protocols, including a "methodical search" of the campus. No suspicious items were found and students and staff were allowed back on school grounds.
During this time, deputies tracked the phone number to a family at Winding Waters K-8 in Brooksville.
The school resource officer pulled the Winding Waters student out of class and removed her belongings from the classroom.
With her mother present, the student told deputies that she lent her phone to a classmate between about 10-11:45 a.m. so she could prank call her friend at Explorer.
That student was then called into the assistant principal's office with her mother where she reportedly admitted to making the call and sending the text messages, adding, "This is how kids joke."
The student was arrested and charged with a false report of a bomb. She remains at the Department of Juvenile Justice in Ocala.
