Florida 5th grader arrested for mass shooting threat

A fifth-grade student in Florida was arrested Saturday for threatening to pull off a mass shooting via text messages, police said.

The 10-year-old boy, a student at Patriot Elementary School in Cape Coral, was handcuffed and walked into a police cruiser Saturday evening for making a written threat to conduct a mass shooting.

“This student’s behavior is sickening, especially after the recent tragedy in Uvalde, Texas,” Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said in a statement. “Making sure our children are safe is paramount.”

The sheriff’s office’s School Threat Enforcement Team was tipped off to the alarming messages and the Youth Services Criminal Investigations Division soon took on the case, due to the child’s young age.

Marceno noted that officers were quick to investigate the mass shooting threats.

“We will have law and order in our schools! My team didn’t hesitate one second…NOT ONE SECOND, to investigate this threat,” he said.

Officers who responded to the Uvalde, Texas school shooting that claimed the lives of 19 fourth-graders and two teachers are facing backlash for their delayed response. Police took nearly an hour to breach the classrooms where all the shootings occurred and kill gunman Salvador Ramos.

Detectives interviewed the Florida boy — whose name the Post is withholding because he is a minor — and developed probable cause for his arrest, police said.

“Right now is not the time to act like a little delinquent. It’s not funny,” Marceno said. “This child made a fake threat, and now he’s experiencing real consequences.”