RAVENA, N.Y. (AP) — Three students in upstate New York who police say posted videos mimicking a school shooting face felony charges of making a terroristic threat.
The Albany County Sheriff’s Office says two videos were made by Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk students aged 10, 14 and 15 and posted to Instagram. They show a student with a fake gun barging into a living room and “shooting” two other students sitting with tray tables. In one video, students use a racial epithet.
Sheriff Craig Apple says the videos were “very graphic, very racist and horrifying.” But civil rights experts raise free speech concerns and call the arrests police overreach.
Another student reported the postings Friday, and police arrested three students Saturday.
The videos did not specifically threaten any schools or people.
The students have been suspended.
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