11 year old Central Florida boy arrested for hoax school shooter call

Marion County, FL — The early morning school rush on Tuesday, December 5th was chaotic at Horizon Academy in Marion Oaks.

The Marion County Sheriffs office says at around 9:39 a.m., the Marion County Public Safety Communications Center picked up a 911 phone call reporting an active school shooter. The sheriff’s office sent all available deputies to the school.

The School Resource Officer, did not hear or report a school shooting, but, as a precaution, the school was immediately placed on lockdown.

Deputies, detectives, SWAT, Aviation, and K-9s all responded to the school. Even Officers from the Ocala Police Department, the Florida Highway Patrol, and other state and federal law enforcement agencies. A massive search and investigation on the campus revealed no threat to the school. During the search, the school was evacuated.

Through further investigation, it revealed the 911 caller was 11-year-old Taryn Louis-Jean. Louis-Jean reportedly told his friend he wanted to go home early, and used his friends phone to call it in when his friend left their phone unattended. This incident was labeled as a prank.

“This student put fear into his fellow students, staff, and parents,” said Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods.

The Sheriff released a statement on the incident, “I will not tolerate my young citizens being fearful of going to school because you wanted to be a ‘jokester’ in hopes of going home. The law requires that any person who makes these types of false reports pay restitution for the cost of the law enforcement response, which, in this case, will equal hundreds upon hundreds of man-hours. This young man is going to need to mow a lot of lawns to pay that bill.”

11 year old Louis-Jean was arrested on a False Report of a Mass Shooting, Utilizing a Two-Way Communication Device to Facilitate a Felony, Disruption of a School Function, and Misuse of a 911 Emergency System.

Click the link below to listen to the 911 call:

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