A Tinley Park teenager was charged Wednesday with making a threat to a school building or persons, a Class 4 felony, the Tinley Park Police Department said in a news release.
The teenager, who police did not identify, posted a threat of a school shooting at Central Middle School on social media, police said.
“Tinley Park police were notified of the post, and a subsequent investigation by detectives identified the teen responsible,” police said. “Police took the teen into custody later that day and transported them to the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center.”
Additional police officers were assigned to Central Middle School Thursday morning as a precautionary measure, police said.
“The Tinley Park Police Department takes all threats involving our schools seriously and will thoroughly investigate any threat made against students, staff, or school facilities,” Tinley Park police Chief Thomas Tilton said in the news release.
The arrest comes the same week that Oak Forest High School was locked down after a shooting threat that later proved to be false.
The Oak Forest Police Department received a call at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday from a male caller who claimed that he was inside a bathroom at the high school and that he had guns and a homemade bomb, police said.
“During the call, he threatened to shoot people inside the school and ultimately claimed that he had shot someone,” police said in a news release.
Areas inside the school surrounding the supposed location of the caller were evacuated, police said, while the remainder of the school was placed on lockdown.
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As the situation unfolded, police were able to determine that the report was false, and the school was ultimately cleared without the caller or any weapons being found. There is no evidence that students or staff were ever in any actual danger, police said.
The investigation into the source of the threat is ongoing, and has been referred to the FBI, Oak Forest police said. There were no further developments as of Friday afternoon, an Oak Forest spokesperson said.