PALATKA, Fla. — The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that it had made an arrest in a school shooting threat that sent deputies flocking to Palatka Junior-Senior High School Thursday.
While deputies deemed the threat to not be credible, PCSO said it deployed extra deputies to the school Thursday out of an abundance of caution
Officials said they traced the threat back to a 14-year-old student currently suspended from the school. The child, identified as Josiah Alston, allegedly sent the threat to a school administrator using another student’s email account while at the Palatka branch library.
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His identity and location were found by tracing the IP address, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
Alston was later arrested at his Palatka home for making written threats to kill, a 2nd degree felony. He was initially taken to the Putnam County Jail before being transferred to a juvenile detention facility in Volusia County.
Because of the child’s age, we will not be showing his booking photo.
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"We want to thank the community for their support as we worked this case to a successful conclusion. The sheriff’s office takes every threat to our schools seriously and will investigate each one fully.“
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