US: NYPD initiates probe into 'shoot up' threat against students in posh Brooklyn school

New York Police Department (NYPD) on Sunday initiated a probe against an anonymous individual who made online threats to "shoot up" a high school in an elite school in Brooklyn. The person, who identified himself to be a fellow student, reportedly planned to dance in "military-style and abba gimme gimme Eurobeat" while killing his fellow schoolmates and live streaming the shooting, cops told the New York Post. "We are investigating it," the publication quoted Detective Denise Maroni as saying.

The threat comes amid the wave of mass shootings that has rattled large communities in America. The country is still grieving the death of over 30 people, including 19 innocent children in gun violence incidents in the past two months, one of which was in New York. The shooter Payton Grendon who killed 10 Black people in a supermarket in Buffalo NY was "simply motivated by baseless racist theories," the Washington Post reported. On the other hand, the assailant who gunned down 22 (including 19 kids) in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas had reportedly exhibited violent behaviour before but none that were deemed a crime under the law. Identified as Salvador Ramos, the high school dropout had a history of threatening to rape or kill women online.

'I am going to shoot up my school,' gunman says

Noting the rapid escalation in gun massacre incidents across the US, the vigilant NYPD team launched an investigation into the possible high school teen. Speaking about his online video, the detectives detailed the threats made by the potential shooter, the NY Post said. "I am going to shoot up my Millennium Brooklyn High School New York with an MP 15 assault rifle and Glock 17 pistol with hundreds of rounds of ammunition in a few weeks and live stream it on my Instagram," the wannabe killer said.

The anonymous killer hoped to "take at least 15-30 people" with him, the cops informed after carefully scrutinising the video recording posted by the teen. An employee at the Park Slope school, adjacent to Millenium Brooklyn, tipped off the NYPD about the video, the detective told the Post. The anonymous employee e-mailed the police and parents attaching a link to the threat video. "This post appears copy and pasted from social media threats that have been made in previous months to schools throughout the area," he wrote in the mail, adding that the school is taking the video "seriously."

On the other hand, the avowed shooter also claimed not to surrender to authorities, instead would "shoot through the windows to get them." The person also reportedly outlined his hitlist. "Before I do it I'll send a link to my live stream to everyone," the shooter said in his video on the Omegle site, as told to the Post by an NYPD spokesperson. The disturbing incident comes after a series of mass shooting threats reported to NYPD in the past weeks after the two aforementioned gun massacres rocked America.

(Image: AP (representative)