Julian Edelman Helped Prevent School Shooting

Julian Edelman Helped Prevent School Shooting

Julian Edelman Helped Prevent School Shooting

There seems to be a common theme emerging in most of the mass shootings of late. There were warning signs surrounding the shooters. Signs that were recognized by some and overlooked by others. That’s nothing new. But it is word that those who should act upon receiving the warnings failed to do so that is troublesome. Had the FBI or the local police taken action when warned about Nikolas Cruz the tragedy at Stoneman-Douglas High School might never have happened. There will be a number of questions police have to answer about their 20 minute discussion with Nasim Aghdam just hours before she walked into an open air portion of YouTube’s headquarters and opened fire. Did the police miss something? Did they fail to act? Whether they did or not, Michigan police did respond as they should have in a case that could have been a repeat of the Stoneman-Douglas shooting. Today, we are learning about a case where the ball wasn’t dropped and, thanks to Julian Edelman and an observant Instagram user, a school shooting was prevented.

Last month, Edelman, a receiver for the New England Patriots, received a direct message from someone concerning a comment posted on his Instagram account.

“Dude, there is a kid in your comment section says he’s going to shoot up a school, i think you should alert the authority.”

Upon seeing the message, Edelman thought about the Stoneman-Douglas shooting. Then he contacted his assistant with instructions to check his account for the threatening message. The comment was there.

“I’m going to shoot my school up watch the news.”

The assistant contacted Boston Police who, in the course of their investigation, determined the originating IP address for the comment came from Port Huron, MI. Michigan authorities were then contacted. Port Huron Police Capt. Joseph Platzer said a 14-year-old has confessed to posting the threat. He has been arrested and is, at last report, being held in a juvenile-detention facility. He’s been charged with making a false report of a threat of terrorism.

The Instagram user who notified Edelman possibly should have contacted the authorities himself. However, he — or she — didn’t simply ignore the potential threat. They reached out to Edelman and pointed the threat out to him. Why did they take that approach instead of contacting the police themselves? We don’t know that answer. Perhaps it was as simple as figuring Edelman was more of a “name” and that meant he would have more pull, more leverage when talking with the police. Whatever the reason, they took action and got the investigation rolling.

Edelman himself did the right thing as well. Even as the thought about what happened in Parkland, even as he thought about his own child, he contacted his assistant with instructions to look for the threat. Once the threat was found it was reported to the police. Kudos to the Boston Police for taking not only the information from Edelman’s assistant seriously, but in carrying through with the investigation and with then contacting the Port Huron Police. Thanks to the Port Huron authorities for following through and making the arrest. One hopes the child involved was merely blowing off steam, but that is not the sort of threat we need to ignore.

Looking at it, there are so many places where the ball could have been dropped. It wasn’t. Unlike the Parkland shooting, people took the warning seriously and acted. This is how it should be done. Yet we aren’t seeing much about it. At least not yet. The cynic in me says it’s because there are no bodies to show and no agenda to follow here. Another part says it is because the authorities wanted to keep it under wraps until the investigation was over. Whatever the cause, we owe that anonymous Instagram user, Edelman and his assistant our thanks for stepping up and acting. We owe the police our thanks for not dropping the ball. We owe it to the rest of us to demand this sort of response to similar situations from now on.

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7 Comments
  • George V says:

    Amazing how things work when people (well, more specifically, law enforcement) do their jobs. There have been a number of threats made by students in Michigan since the Florida shooting that have resulted in arrests.

    So, for me, a big question is what’s changed in the last 50 years? Bullying existed when I was in school, as did semi-auto rifles. Has bullying gotten worse? Are we seeing a “benefit” of social media that effectively amplifies bullying to the point where it makes a child psychotic?

    Furthermore, what is going on in the schools that that so many children show psychotic behaviors? The school has direct control of children for several hours a day for most of their lives. What happens in school is a big part of what makes a persons beliefs and behaviors. What’s happening in the school that makes this behavior?

    • Amanda Green says:

      What’s happened? I lay much of the blame on “zero tolerance”. Kids no longer have the ability to stand up against bullies. If they do, they are often the ones to be disciplined or expelled. That gives the bullies free rein.

      What happened? Lack of discipline in the schools. Students know there will be few, if any, consequences to their bad actions. Screw up? You get detention — maybe. Really screw up? You get to go to alternative school. Mommy and Daddy don’t want little Junior to bet licks or have to run laps or any of the other forms of consequences that were once used.

      What happened? Gone are the days when most kids knew if they got in trouble at school, they’d face even more trouble at home. Too many parents have abdicated parenting to the schools and yet, at the same time, have tied the hands of the schools to do anything to discipline their little darlings.

      I could go on. All of that still comes down to the fact that kids are no longer allowed to handle things on their own. Some districts will even discipline — as in send to in-school suspension — kids for fighting well away from school property. So they can’t even deal with bullies away from school.

  • Scott says:

    I’d suggest a four part answer to your question about what happened over the last 50 yrs GWB..
    1. The destruction of the nuclear family.
    2. The dramatic increase in the number of two parent families, in which both parents work.
    3. The “normalization of deviancy” in society at large.
    4. The indoctrination of our children in schools, everyone gets a trophy, no-one should be offended, etc.

    For those of you that recognize that all 4 of these items are direct from the leftist playbook, bonus points to you!

  • Scott says:

    I agree completely Amanda. When a fist fight is treated the same as pulling a knife, or a picture of a gun treated the same as a real gun, it’s not surprising that kids do what they do. and sorry George V, I got your name wrong in my reply.

  • MikeyParks says:

    Life in a matriarchy.

  • GWB says:

    Why did they take that approach instead of contacting the police themselves?
    Well, it’s sort of like deflating the football so it’s a little easier to catch………………

    *waves at Scott*
    I’m down here! 😉

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