A female student from Fairland High School has been arrested for a threat against her school.

On Feb. 22, the school contacted the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office concerning a threat by utterance and they began an investigation. The girl has been suspended since the threat was made.

On Tuesday around 8:30 a.m., deputies arrested the juvenile female at her home on warrants for one count of unruly/delinquency by terroristic threats and one count of unruly/delinquency by inducing panic.

The sheriff’s office continues to investigate threats made against Symmes Valley schools and Chesapeake schools. Sheriff Jeff Lawless said he could not go into specifics of the threats and added that some cases have proven to be more difficult in developing evidence against a suspect than others.

“Threats against our schools will not be tolerated,” Lawless said. “If you make a threat to one of our schools, we will do what we can to bring you to justice.”

The sheriff reminded parents and children that nearly everything that is put on a computer or a cell phone is traceable back to the person who sent it.

“There is a misconception that some sites are not traceable and ‘disappear’ in a few seconds, but the truth is, once it is out there, it does not go away,” Lawless said. “Making a threat is not a joke, there is nothing funny about it and doing so could result in your arrest.”

While local law enforcement may not have the manpower or knowledge to track things from a computer or cell phone, they can call for assistance from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) cyber crimes and criminal intelligence analysts. They are able to assist 24 hours a day, seven days a week and can usually trace the threats back to the source within a couple of hours.

Last Thursday was a busy day for law enforcement in the region with a number of threats circulating on social media. The Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office arrested a girl for making threats on Snapchat against the Rock Hill schools on Wednesday that said, “shooting up Rock Hill… y’all better share this if y’all want to live. Going to the gym first thing in the morning and fleeing.” She was arrested around 2 a.m. on Thursday morning.

Later in the day, the Coal Grove Police Department arrested a male Dawson-Bryant Middle School student after he made threats on Snapchat.

In Scioto and Pike County, law agencies were investigating a Snapchat account under the name “Brie Savage” posted threats against New Boston, Clay, Portsmouth, West and Waverly schools that students needed to “watch out tomorrow February 22 I’m coming for everyone who ever messed with me and anyone who gets in my way was getting shot up too.”

That threat was traced to the phone of 15-year-old girl and she was arrested on five counts of inducing panic, a fifth-degree felony, for each school that was threatened, and one count of making terroristic threats, a third-degree felony.