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.