In Florida, One Sheriff Hopes Public Shaming Will Deter School Threats

​​The 2024-2025 academic year is still young, but already school shootings have loomed large in the national discourse. According to Education Week, there have been 9 incidents since July 31 that have resulted in 24 injuries and deaths. (That’s not even counting those killed or injured in the 2023-2024 year.) To add to the distress of students, parents, and teachers alike, threats of shootings, largely unsubstantiated, have also been on the rise. USA Today reports that across the country, dozens of students — children— have been arrested across the country for terroristic threats. Many of the students have claimed the threat was nothing more than a joke.

Law enforcement, it seems, is taking no chances. One officer, Sheriff Mike Chitwood of Volusia County, Florida, has taken a unique approach to the issue of threats, even false ones: “Starting [September 16], your little cherub, we’re going to start publishing his face and doing perp walks with them when we take them into custody,” he said in a video posted to social media on September 13.

“This is absolutely out of control and it ends now,” he told the media during a press conference the same day. “Parents, do your job. Don’t let Sheriff Chitwood raise your kids. ... We’re going to come and get you and we’re going to put you out for public embarrassment. I know a set of parents right now that they’re looking at $11,000 each because somebody’s paying this bill.” He went on to threaten parents of juvenile perpetrators with covering the cost of needless investigations to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars and went on to threaten sharing their names and photos with the media as well.

On September 16, “as promised,” Chitwood did indeed release a mugshot as well as a perp walk video of an 11-year-old boy who had a written list of names and targets and had shared a video to other students showing off an arsenal of airsoft rifles, pistols and fake ammunition along with knives, swords and other weapons, which were recovered by deputies. He told the police it was a joke, but was still charged with a felony.

“These little knuckleheads think it’s funny,” Chitwood told the press. “Go talk to those parents [who have lost a loved one in a school shooting] and see how funny this is. It’s not.”

Chitwood’s frustration is understandable: during last week’s news conference, he said Florida authorities had investigated more than 200 tips sent through the app FortifyFL. “All of them have been deemed bogus,” he said. Nevertheless, even baseless threats have a cost of time and resources for law enforcement and can traumatize a targeted community.

But not all agree with a shame-based deterrent.

“A CHILD of 11 is not making adult decisions. Mike Chitwood is an unethical, overzealous, callous, Grady Judd wanna be,” tweets @ladyg8rPD. “There’s a way to handle this without further hurting the children.”

“I hate being that guy, but his ‘arsenal’ is a bunch of airsoft guns and mostly cheap looking swords,” observed the account @LDS_Dems. “I am glad his threat was taken seriously. But I am never gonna support perpwalking a child. I am totally down with perpwalking his parents though.”

“I get that he made threats,” acknowledged @BobbieS12529218, “but... should this really be being treated like an adult instead of getting the therapy he clearly needs?”

And yet response to Chitwood’s approach has been largely positive. Comments below the sheriff’s posts on Twitter and Facebook overwhelmingly applaud his tough stance on juvenile threats. And it seems Chitwood himself is unlikely to change course any time soon.

“I can’t say this clearer: you don’t stand up on an airplane and yell hijack, you don’t walk into a movie theater and yell fire, and you don’t get online and post that you’re going to shoot up a school. It’s going to get your ass sent to jail,” he told the media. “So parents, get your kids in line or your checkbooks are going to hurt and your pride’s going to hurt. I promise.”