New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman may have played a large role in stopping a tragedy in Michigan.
Edelman was notified that somebody was in the comments section of his Instagram account threatening to shoot up a school. He didn’t wait long to make some moves, which resulted in a Michigan boy being arrested.
The New York Times reported the following:
He quickly notified his assistant in Boston, Shannen Moen, who looked through the hundreds of comments that followed Edelman’s most recent post on Instagram. She found the alarming message: “I’m going to shoot my school up watch the news.
Moen called 911, and a police officer soon arrived. The officer saw the screen shot, then called her chief, who sent two detectives to Moen’s house. The detectives collected some information about the person who posted the threat. They then returned to their office, where they made an emergency records request for account information, which allowed them to determine the sender’s email and IP address, which was traced to Port Huron, Mich.
The detectives called police in Michigan, who immediately drove to the house where the threatening message originated. When the police arrived at the address, they found a 14-year-old boy, who, they said, admitted to posting the threat.
Good for Edelman for being wise enough to react quickly given the situation and heightened sense of awareness around school shootings these days. Obviously, we don’t know how serious this kid in the comments section was, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry these days.
It’s also crazy to think about many wild things must get said in the comment section of famous people’s Instagram accounts. There can sometimes be thousands of people in there making remarks. It’s incredible that somebody was even able to see the comment, message Edelman and then Edelman actually saw the message. It seems like there were a few strokes of luck along the way here, and that’s good news for everybody involved.
Edelman will be remembered for a lot of things, especially the things he has done on the football field. After all, he has won two Super Bowls. He can now add potentially saving a bunch of lives to the list of accomplishments. Props to him.