Patriots receiver Julian Edelman may have helped thwart a shooting at Michigan school
New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman received hundreds of comments on one of his recent Instagram posts. Nothing unusual about that for a popular NFL player.
But one of those comments was unusual — and more than a little disturbing.
It read: “I’m going to shoot my school up watch the news.”
Luckily, Edelman and others acted fast and wound up possibly thwarting a potential tragedy. Police in Port Huron, Mich., arrested a 14-year-old boy and charged him with making a false report of a threat of terrorism. While at the boy’s home, police also found two rifles belonging to his mother, according to Capt. Joseph Platzer.
“We are thankful everyone takes these types of things seriously so we can investigate these situations fully,” Platzer said. “We like to remind people that if they see something, say something.”
Edelman, whose Instagram post was dated March 25, was visiting former Patriots teammate Danny Amendola in Texas when he received a direct message to his Instagram account: “Dude, there is a kid in your comment section says he s going to shoot up a school, i think you should alert the authority.”
Edelman said that he immediately thought of the recent tragedy in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed during a school shooting. “With the emotions of what happened, and I have a kid now, I said, holy Toledo, what is going on?” he told the New York Times earlier this week.
He alerted his Boston-based assistant, Sharon Moen, who found the alarming comment and called 911. Authorities in Boston were able to determine it came from Port Huron. Police in Michigan drove to the house where the message originated and found a boy who admitted to posting it. The boy was taken to a juvenile detention center and remains there.
“Thankfully, this kid said something,” Edelman told the New York Times of the person who initially alerted him to the threat. “We’re going to send him something, a care package, just for his work. He’s the real hero.”
But Moen told the New York Times that attempts to identify and locate that person have been unsuccessful so far.
Twitter: @chewkiii
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