A Utah woman literally saved her son’s life late last week after she checked his Facebook page and discovered threatening posts to shoot the teen at school.
The mother, who along with her son has not been identified by name in reports, immediately contacted police.
“She had actually read threats and seen the threat on his Facebook page,” Salt Lake City police detective Greg Wilking told the Deseret News. “There were very specific threats that they were going to go the high school and shoot her son.”
Police also discovered a linked photo on Instagram with a gun held by a hand with gang-affiliated letters written on it.
Police discovered the two teens allegedly behind the threats outside the intended victim’s Salt Lake City high school on Friday in a car with a gun matching the Instagram photo, ammunition, a large amount of cash, illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia.
“This could have been something pretty tragic,” fellow police detective Cody Lougy said.
The two suspects do not attend the high school where police apprehended them. Investigators speculate the threat could be linked to gang-related activity, specifically a drive-by shooting that occurred shortly before the threats were made. No one in that incident was harmed.
“Anything you do online these days can be traced to you, and you might want to think about that before you put something out on the Web,” Wilking told a local CBS station.
Salt Lake City School District spokesman Jason Olsen encouraged parents to follow the example of the intended victim’s mother and report suspicious activity.
“Our message is, this is a parent paying attention to their child’s social media and paying attention to what they’re seeing on their social media sites,” Wilking said on NBC News. “If this parent hadn’t been paying attention, we could have had a shooting.”