RIPLEY, W.Va. — Jackson County Sheriff Ross Mellinger said anytime there is a situation involving a school it immediately becomes the top priority.
“Regardless of what you’re doing at the time, it becomes secondary to a school incident. You drop what you’re doing and dive right into it,” said Mellinger in a conversation with MetroNews Affiliate WMOV in Ravenswood.
Mellinger’s deputies were alerted by Jackson County School Superintendent Will Hosaflook Sunday to a potential threat at Ripley Middle School. They followed up and confronted the young boy who had allegedly threatened to commit a school shooting on Monday in a post to social media. He was taken into custody in a rural part of Jackson County and his electronic device confiscated.
Mellinger said it was a completely credible threat and the youngster was definitely sincere in his desire to go through with the intentions he had expressed.
“Even though this stopped short of being a catastrophic event, it certainly was well on its way to becoming that. Had it not gotten the attention it got early on, we could be looking at a whole different headline,” he said.
He added, it’s an important example of “see something, say something.”
“It’s better than to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. When you have that vital information, you as the administrator or law enforcement agency, you have the ability to independently analyze it and decide whether we need to look into this or not,” he said.
The boy was taken into custody and remains lodged in a juvenile detention facility. Mellinger said there were no other outstanding threats to students or teachers.