Possible threat to SC school has parents rushing to get their kids

A South Carolina school was on edge Monday as police investigated a possible threat.

The county Sheriff’s Office investigated a threat to Dillon High School, located about 45 minutes northeast of Florence, Dillon School District Four Superintendent Ray Rogers said. The school at one point was on lockdown.

According to WMBF-TV, a student posted to Facebook that he would “shoot up Dillon High School” on Monday. A school resource officer went to the home of the student in question at 7 a.m. Monday, Rogers said, and parents handed over the child’s phone for inspection.

Rogers said the situation was under control and that, by around 2 p.m., parents of 800 of the 900 students at the school had signed out and removed their child for the day. School was not canceled and buses were still running.

Last week, school districts in Richland, Lexington, Kershaw, Spartanburg and Fairfield counties dealt with possible threats to schools made on social media in the wake of the mass shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 that killed 17 people. In one incident, a 17-year-old was taken into custody after allegedly threatening to shoot up Westwood High School, near Blythewood, in Richland School District Two.

It is not uncommon for a mass shooting to inspire threats or copycat incidents. Up to 30 percent of mass killings and school shootings can be traced back to others that have happened in the prior 13 days, according to a study by researchers at Arizona State University and Northern Illinois University.

This story was originally published February 19, 2018 at 9:35 AM with the headline "Possible threat to SC school has parents rushing to get their kids."