Scholars’ Academy Teen’s Chilling Posts of Gun and Threat

Liz Smith-Breslin had just returned from a Christmas party late Friday night when her sister texted her a photo of a handgun posted by an eighth grader at the New York City public school their children attend.

“So fucking sexy,” the poster had written, adding a flame emoji.

The sister also sent a second Snapchat posting by somebody with the same handle. This one was a message written on white letters on a black background that made the first one all the more chilling.

“Ya’ll do good to find a good hiding spot on monday.”

Smith had just finished reading when her 14-year-old son, Quinn, appeared from his bedroom. He asked what would have otherwise been a surprising question at 12:30 a.m. on a Saturday.

“Do I have to go to school on Monday?”

Quinn had also seen the photo of the gun and the accompanying warning. The screenshots of the Snapchats were caroming online among students and parents at Scholars’ Academy, a school in Queens for gifted students in grades 6-12.

Later on Saturday, an email with the heading “Principal’s Message – Response to Threats on Social Media” went out to the school community.

“I am writing to address the concern regarding a threatening post made last night on Snapchat that is currently circulating among members of the community via text and social media,” principal Michelle Smyth said. “These posts were brought to my attention last night and immediate attention was taken. The NYPD was notified and responded swiftly to the situation. The threat was deemed not credible, yet we will continue to work with the NYPD. NYPD and Department of Education offices are supporting school administration to ensure that it is addressed thoroughly and appropriate disciplinary action is taken.”

The police had gone to the boy’s home and determined that the weapon in question was a BB gun. The boy’s age prevents the police from commenting on any action they may or may not have taken. His parents could not be reached for comment. The Daily Beast is withholding his name because he is a minor.

But whether it was the police or just school officials who deemed the threat “not credible,” the menace accompanying the message felt entirely too actual to Smith-Breslin and Quinn, and other parents and students. And it came to seem all the more so when another Snapchat began circulating, more white letters on a black background apparently written by the same boy to a friend:

“What if all the people that annoyed u

Were dead in front of [u]

Blood on yo hands

Wouldnt that feel amazing

To see them beg i bring my gun closer and closer to them

All of them…

Their eyes full of fear

Oh many

The enjoyment

Is what im looking for

And this

Is how imafind it”

To Smith-Breslin and other parents, the words in themselves constituted a threat.

“We were like ‘not credible’? What are you talking about?” she told The Daily Beast. “I think that’s what put people in a frenzy. I don’t really care what kind of gun it was.”

Smith-Breslin posed a question to the school system that was not at all unusual for a mother at such a time.

“What are you going to do to guarantee our children’s safety and what are you going to do with the child that made this threat regardless whether the gun was real or not?”

Her husband, Kevin Breslin, conveyed his feelings in an email to Community School District 27 of the city Department of Education, which covers that part of Queens.

“It is Sunday afternoon at 3:46pm,” he began. “I have not received a safety update for my son who is a student at Scholars’ Academy regarding his safe return to school tomorrow. This is abhorrent, unprofessional and negligent on the part of the New York City Board of Education. Leaving my son in harm’s way. I immediately request an update explaining how my son and the student body are going to be protected moving ahead at The Scholars’ Academy. Before my son steps back into this school I demand an answer!”

He added, “After what transpired in Michigan, I urge you to respond to my email.”

Breslin was referring to the Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School in which four students were killed and seven others were wounded. School officials there are said to have discounted threats that 15-year-old suspect, Ethan Crumbley, posted on social media two weeks before the attack. Crumbley also posted a photo of a handgun that unfortunately fired actual bullets.

District 27 responded to Breslin’s email much as school officials did to queries from The Daily Beast about the Snapchat posts in Queens:

“Thank you for your email. Due to the fact that this is an active investigation, as well as due to privacy laws, specific information regarding this investigation cannot be shared at this time. Appropriate action is being taken, and unfortunately, we are legally not able to share details.”

Quinn stayed home from school on Monday, along with many other students. They included seventh grader Francesco Callipo. His mother, Jen Callipo, said she was unhappy her son was missing school and feeling added stress on top of all the lost class time and anxiety due to COVID-19. And she is frustrated that the school is not giving clearer answers.

“They’re not telling us anything that’s being done,” she told The Daily Beast. “They’re just saying they’re taking care of it… I don’t trust that.”

She added, “I don’t feel safe sending him to school knowing that this boy might be there.”

Michelle Arguello kept her 11-year-old daughter, Athena, home. The mother said that on Sunday the girl told her, “Mom, we should be able to feel safe with our families at home and in school.”

Athena welcomed the news when Arguello told her the school had installed metal detectors.

“She said, ‘You know, Mom, now I feel safe. That’s gonna make me feel safe,’” Arguello said. “So we’re hoping that those stay.”

Athena gave her mother a report after speaking to friends who had gone to school.

“They said it was, you know, just like any other day except with the metal detectors and bag checks,” the mother told The Daily Beast. “And of course, a lot of students were out.”

Along with the other mothers The Daily Beast interviewed, Arguello feels strongly that the boy in question should not remain at the school. But the prospect that he will be removed from Scholars’ Academy raises the possibility he might be transferred to Channel View School for Research directly across the street, where Theesa Robinson’s 12-year-old son, Derek, is in the sixth grade.

Robinson said the worry at Scholars’ Academy is already affecting her son. He might have opted to remain home on Monday, but he has been maintaining a perfect attendance record.

“My child went to school in FEAR this morning,” Robinson reported. “He didn’t want to jeopardize his perfect attendance and bravely walked into that school, prepared with safety tactics we went over in preparation of a mass shooting. This cannot be our reality.”

Officially, the school day ended without event.

“My 12-year-old came home telling me how bad his stomach hurt all day, how he thinks it’s anxiety, how we should reconsider homeschooling,” Robinson said.

In the meantime, Robinson said she will stop telling Derek that he carries too many textbooks in his book bag. She counseled him on the way to school on Monday how to put them to good use if a threat ever suddenly proves credible.

“Use your book bag filled with textbooks and your laptop as a shield,” she told him.