A school resource officer was called to investigate a perceived death threat at Lake Weir Middle School on Wednesday.
The resource officer, a Marion County sheriff’s deputy, was contacted by the dean of students at the school, located at 10220 SE Sunset Harbor Rd. in Summerfield. She and a juvenile met with the deputy after the 13-year-old eighth-grader reported being in the school’s restroom and hearing another student say, “We’re all gonna die tomorrow,” a sheriff’s office report states.
The 13-year-old said the student was talking to himself and he didn’t hear anything else that he said. But he added that during the “B” lunch period, the same student was sitting in a booth near the wall. The boy said he made eye contact with the seventh-grader as lunch was being dismissed and he said, “All ‘B’ lunch commit suicide and die.”
The seventh-grader told the deputy that he plays the video game Dungeons & Dragons and “puts his own twist on the game.” He said that while in the restroom he may have made a statement to himself about people dying. And he added that it would have been in reference to the game, the report says.
The student said that during his lunch period, he made a map “of his own twist on the game, which included zombies.” He said he may have said that if the zombies got past all the ways that were created, “they would all die,” the report says.
The student added that he didn’t speak with anyone directly about any threats, nor would he make any statements to harm someone, the report says, adding that the deputy saw the map the student made and “did not see anything concerning or threatening in nature.”
The deputy and the dean of students agreed that no threat existed and that the 13-year-old boy misunderstood the seventh-grader and perceived his comments as threats. But once investigated, it was determined the statements were taken out of context, the report says.
