The parents of four murdered students and two murdered teachers at Parkland never got to hug their kids again.
Now a Florida sheriff is done waiting for parents to do their jobs.
A 10-year-old and an 11-year-old just got perp walked on camera – and what they did to earn it will make your blood boil.
A 10-Year-Old Wrote a Kill List in Permanent Marker
Micah Swinnie, 10, walked into his classroom at Pride Elementary School and picked up a marker.
He didn't use it to do schoolwork.
He wrote on the whiteboard that he was going to bring a gun to school.
Then he left behind a handwritten note – "a list of people who i'm gunna kill" – stuffed inside a desk.
Deputies arrested him on a felony charge of making a written threat to kill.
His parents told police he does not have access to any firearms.
https://twitter.com/unlimited_ls/status/2029518583403807159?s=20
The Volusia County Sheriff's Office had a direct response: "That doesn't change the consequences of his actions."
The 11-Year-Old Had Already Been Here Before
Anthony Steward, 11, was not a first-time visitor to the Volusia County juvenile justice system.
In October, he was arrested for sending the message "IM GONNA SHOOT YOU" through a classmate's school account at Southwestern Middle School.
A court put him in a diversion program – counseling and rehabilitation instead of jail time.
He apparently didn't take the lesson seriously.
This week, Steward used another student's Gradebook Communications account to send "imma shoot you" to seven teachers at DeLand Middle School.
When the handcuffs went on and he complained they felt "real tight," a deputy told him he could have avoided that entirely.
The sheriff's office called him a "repeat visitor."
Meanwhile, a third incident surfaced the same week: a 12-year-old girl in Port Orange created a fake Snapchat account, sent herself messages threatening a shooting at her school, then reported it to police as real.
Investigators said she did it on a dare.
https://twitter.com/Thefactsdude/status/2029375663757513084?s=20
She was charged with making a false report and unlawful use of a communications device.
Sheriff Chitwood Has Had Enough
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood launched his perp walk policy in September 2024 – and he is not backing down.
After more than 280 school threats flooded his department in just three weeks of the 2024 school year, Chitwood announced that every juvenile arrested for a school threat would be videotaped in handcuffs and posted to the sheriff's Facebook page.
"Parents, you don't want to raise your kids, I'm going to start raising them," he said.
His message this week carried the same energy.
"I know some want to make excuses and coddle the select few who choose to make threats," the sheriff's office wrote. "You can pat them on the head and tell them everything's going to be alright. My job is to look out for everyone else."
"These idiotic threats disrupt our schools, eat up time and resources, and increase the chances a real threat slips through the cracks. If you can threaten to shoot 7 teachers you can take a perp walk. Parents, discipline your kids and I won't have to."
Chitwood's district covers approximately 63,000 students and 4,400 teachers.
Every single threat investigation pulls law enforcement resources away from real crimes – and Chitwood has already pursued parents directly for investigation costs.
Parents of two Heritage Middle School students each owed $11,000 after their children were arrested for school shooting threats in 2024.
This Is Exactly What Happens When Nobody Disciplines Kids
The approach is working.
Since implementing strict accountability measures and the public perp walk policy, Volusia County has seen a 21% decrease in school-based threats.
https://twitter.com/jay251352/status/2029941316054831376?s=20
Every sheriff in America should be watching.
The national picture is ugly: school shooting threats exploded after the 2024 Apalachee High School shooting, where a 14-year-old killed four people in Winder, Georgia.
The contagion effect is real – in Missouri alone, more than 100 school shooting threats were reported in a single summer, a total that had taken all of the prior year to reach.
None of this happens in a vacuum.
Parents who hand their kids phones without accountability, and communities that let the first offense slide, are creating the conditions for the next dead teacher or dead classmate.
The lesson is getting through to courts, too.
On March 3, 2026, the father of the Apalachee shooter was convicted on all 29 charges – including two counts of second-degree murder – for handing his son the rifle.
Colin Gray now faces up to 180 years in prison.
The parents of the Oxford High School shooter are each serving 10 years after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
The message is the same in every one of these cases: there is no such thing as a joke threat anymore.
Swinnie said he didn't mean the threats he wrote in permanent marker.
Steward was already in a diversion program when he sent his second round.
The 12-year-old said she did it on a dare.
None of them meant it.
And yet 63,000 students in Volusia County had to go to school this week wondering if one of these "jokes" was real.
Sheriff Chitwood is the only adult in the room treating this seriously.
More sheriffs need to follow his lead – and more parents need to check what their kids are writing on whiteboards.
Sources:
- Sophia Compton, "Two Florida students, 10 and 11, arrested over alleged shooting threats," Fox News, March 6, 2026.
- Grace Bellinghausen, "Florida 12-year-old accused of faking school shooting threat on Snapchat after being dared," CBS12, March 8, 2026.
- "Two Volusia kids arrested in separate school threats in one week," ClickOrlando/News 6, March 7, 2026.
- "Florida sheriff posts arrest video of 2 teens accused of making school threat," CBS Miami, September 19, 2024.
- "Volusia sheriff blasts parents of children who make threats to schools," FL Voice News, September 16, 2024.
- "Can a Parent Be Held Accountable for Their Child's School Shooting?" The Trace, March 3, 2026.
- "11-Year-Old Arrested After Crafting Chilling Kill List For Classmates," PatriotFetch, November 2025.
