CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Chicago police said a south suburban man is in custody and being questioned about a series of online threats of gun violence against a number of Chicago Public Schools, including Simeon Career Academy High School in Chatham.
Chicago police said schools named in social media threats are on the South and West sides, including Simeon Career Academy High School in Chatham. This as the community mourns the death of two of its students killed in two separate shootings.
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"At this point, all of the threats that we’ve received through social media at the schools that we’ve identified have not been credible, but as we’ve mentioned, we’ve taken each and every threat very seriously," Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said.
Still, police are beefing up patrols around schools named in the online threats.
"We take any threats that are made at any of our schools extremely seriously including those on social media," added Jadine Chou, Chief of Safety and Security for the Chicago Public School system.
Supt. Brown said the threatening post put on social media by the person in custody was an old post of something from out-of-state.
“It began with a old social media post from another state that someone reposted in Chicago,” said Supt. David Brown. “That’s the person we have in custody that reposted and continued to post threats to Chicago Public Schools. And we’re seeking the highest possible charge that’s appropriate for the behavior.”
Police said the man in custody has been on electronic monitoring for making social media threats in the suburbs.
“Fear is likely the bottom line to why a person would do something like this,” Brown said. “It’s really tragic that...after Chicago has experienced these two tragic deaths of young people at Simeon that someone would now start posting on social media threats to stir further fears in parents.”
In fact, Chief Chou said attendance at Simeon High School was down this week after the threats and the apparent unrelated killings of two students.
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Meanwhile, Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan offered sparse details about the ongoing investigations into the fatal shootings that rocked Simeon this week.
While Deenihan claimed that investigators “have promising leads” in Williams’ slaying, he pleaded with the public to come forward with information about both attacks.
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(WBBM Newsradio and the Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this copy.)