Three juveniles in Albany, N.Y., are facing felony charges for making terroristic threats after police say they posted “horrifying” videos of themselves acting out a school shooting.
The Associated Press reported that the Albany County Sheriff’s Office said the videos were created by Ravena–Coeymans–Selkirk School District students, aged 10, 14 and 15, and posted to social media site Instagram. One of the clips shows a student barge into a living room with a fake gun before “opening fire” on two other students.
Albany police arrested the students over the weekend in connection to online videos depicting a school shooting scenario. (New Channel 13 / video screenshot)
Police said the students, who are all white, also use a racial slur in one of the videos.
Sheriff Craig Apple condemned the videos, describing them as “very graphic, very racist and horrifying.” Authorities arrested the three students Saturday after another student reported the video to Ravena school officials.
All have been suspended from school and released into their parents’ custody, the newspaper reported.
Manhattan civil rights lawyer Ron Kube disagreed with the police action, however, arguing to The Associated Press that the videos don’t rise to the level of terroristic threats because there was no specific target. Lawyer and former New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Norman Siegel agreed and said the clips appeared to be a juvenile attempt at acting.
Apple called the criminal charges “a wild overreaction driven by the legitimate concerns about school shootings.”
“The arrests raise serious and substantial First Amendment concerns,” Siegel added. “Making a video is protected by the First Amendment.”
In one of the clips in question, the “shooter” says “I’ve always hated school” and pretends to shoot a toy gun at a student seated on the couch. Meanwhile, a female student is seen writhing on the floor. Another video shows the female student announcing that they will be “learning about racism,” to which a male student responds with the N-word. That’s when a third student comes in a pretends to shoot both of them dead.
Apple is defending his decision to take action.
“I expected people to say this was police overreach,” he said Monday. “When we don’t take any action and there’s a school shooting, what’s the response then?”
He added: “There’s been enough shootings going on around the country. This is despicable artistic expression if that’s what it was.”
The students in question are charged with felonies and will be tried as juveniles in family court. A fourth student who shot the videos has been referred to the city’s probation department.
Watch more in the clip below.
