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Home > News > Snapchat hoax leads to police investigation at Eagle Academy

Snapchat hoax leads to police investigation at Eagle Academy

The sharing of a Snapchat video of an assembly at Eagle Academy where balloons were popping and kids were yelling led someone  off-campus to call 911 about a possible shooting at the school Friday morning.
Eagle Academy has a school resource officer, who was in the building at the time of the call and was able to immediately investigate the call. Eagle Police responded to the school immediately as well. Neither the SRO or Eagle Police found any evidence of suspicious activity. All the kids were safe.
The 911 call came into Ada County dispatch at 10:49 a.m. The school was put on lockdown immediately while officers searched the building.
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Investigators quickly figured out what happened – that a 14-year-old boy took a video of the assembly and sent it out on Snapchat. The boy had his phone’s camera lens covered up but the video of the yelling and balloons popping was audible. He wrote text on the video saying a shooting was happening at the school.
He sent the video on Snapchat to a friend, who wasn’t at school that day. The friend saw the video and called 911.
They boy sent out a second video a short time later where he said there was no shooting at the school, but it was too late as his friend already called dispatchers.
Investigators talking to the boy who shared the video.  No charges have been filed at this point but are expected at a later time.
School officials contacted the parents of all the Eagle Academy students with email updates during the incident, which lasted about an hour.