Tinley Park Police said Friday a 13-year-old boy has been charged with felony disorderly conduct after making online threats against students at Grissom Middle School in the village.
The boy was charged Thursday and police said the threat had been made Sept. 14.
The youth is not a student at Grissom but had gained unauthorized access to a Grissom student’s social media account and likeness, and had used it to make the threats appear as if they were coming from the student whose identity he stole, police said in a news release.
Tinley Park police initially said they were working with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and said a person suspected of making the threats is a juvenile, limiting what information they could release.
Police were stationed at the school, 17000 S. 80th Ave., from Sept. 17 through Sept. 20.
Grissom is part of Kirby District 140 and, according to Superintendent Dan Callaghan, families were notified over the weekend of Sept. 14 and 15 letting them know police were investigating a social media post involving a potential threat to Grissom.
Callaghan said the district at that point had been informed by police that a juvenile suspect had been identified and that police had “contained the situation, and assured us that there was no ongoing threat to the safety of our students or staff.”
Police said multiple people had seen the online threat and reported it to police.
In addition to the incident in Tinley Park, in recent weeks threats have been investigated involving schools in Elgin, Glendale Heights, Richton Park, Olympia Fields, Hinsdale, Park Forest and Chicago Public Schools, among others.