MARION OAKS, FL – An 11-year-old boy allegedly called in a false active shooter threat to his middle school on Tuesday as a ploy to get the day off, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. The middle school student, identified as Taryn Louis-Jean, made the 911 call around 9:30 a.m., resulting in an all-out response from local and federal law enforcement agencies.
“Help, there is a school shooter walking through the hallway”, can be heard in the call recording made available to the public. Upon further interrogation by the 911 dispatcher, Louis-Jean was unable to provide the basic details of his perceived predicament.
The call triggered an immediate lockdown of Horizon Academy in Marion Oaks, located roughly 70 miles northwest of Orlando. SWAT and Aviation teams joined state and federal law enforcement officers, who swarmed the school in response to the potential threat of a mass shooting.
The scene was subsequently cleared after a two-hour operation, with no indications of an actual active shooter or any firearms discovered. Some students and staff were in a visibly unsettled state due to the incident.
Following an investigation, the 911 call was traced back to a student’s cell phone that Louis-Jean had allegedly used. According to officials, Louis-Jean took advantage of the owner’s absence when he left his phone unattended to visit the clinic. He reportedly made the call as a ruse to leave school early.
The juvenile was subsequently arrested and charged with making a false report of a mass shooting, misuse of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony, disrupting a school function and misuse of a 911 emergency system.
Sheriff Billy Woods clarified that the law necessitates anyone making such false reports to pay restitution for the cost of the law enforcement response. In this case, the response involved hundreds of man-hours.