Two teens arrested in social media high school threats

Two teenagers have been arrested as suspects in social media threats posted Thursday in what are believed to be unrelated incidents against two Carmel Valley schools, San Diego police said.

A 16-year-old girl who was taken into custody Friday night is suspected in a threat Thursday afternoon against Canyon Crest Academy, police Lt. Kevin Mayer said in a statement. She is not a student at the school, he said.

Earlier Friday, police said a 17-year-old was arrested as a suspect in a threat posted Thursday morning on the Yik Yak social media app against Torrey Pines High School. He was taken into custody Thursday. Police said he is not a Torrey Pines student.

The threats are not believed related, Mayer said.

“At this time, the Torrey Pines High School threat and the Canyon Crest Academy threat are separate incidents and do not appear to be connected,” Mayer said.

Both schools are in the San Dieguito Union High School District.

In a news conference at Torrey Pines High Friday morning, San Diego police Capt. Stephanie Rose declined to discuss many details of the investigation.

“We take threats like this very seriously and we utilize all resources to determine who is involved,” she said. “The perceived anonymity of the Internet can cease the moment somebody makes a threat.”

On Thursday, a Torrey Pines High student notified his father that a posting on Yik Yak said the poster would shoot everyone at 11:55 a.m.

Torrey Pines Principal David Jaffe, at the Friday media briefing, said when he learned of the threat around 10:30 a.m. and told police, “We didn’t know whether it was a viable threat.”

Jaffe said the matter will be treated as a crime and any student caught making school threats would face a minimum of suspension.

Yik Yak, an app started in 2013 and available for Apple and Android phones but not the Internet, has a friendly-looking yak as its mascot and lets users share anonymous posts with people within a 1.5-mile radius.

“Social media is not anonymous,” Jaffe told reporters. “If you post something, you will be held accountable.”

The Torrey Pines campus was locked down for three hours.

Minutes after that incident resolved, Canyon Crest Academy was locked down as school was about to be dismissed. A student reported seeing a posted threat that said, “I’m on the way with three guns.”

In both cases, San Diego police and school staff searched classrooms and grounds, finding no threat or weapons.