The girls, who have not been named, are students at Renaissance Charter School in Pembroke Pines, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
As of Thursday, the 12-year-old had not been arrested because the threats were not immediately dangerous anymore, police said in the Sun-Sentinel report.
The 13-year-old was arrested in November after threats were posted under her name. Pembroke Pines Police Captain Adam Feiner said in a news release that her mother decided to “exercise their rights and did not cooperate with investigators,” not allowing them to look at her daughter’s digital devices.
He said the mother didn’t share more with police until the end of December. The new information prompted officers to subpoena the IP address that the threats had been sent from, connecting the crime to the younger girl.
In the release, Feiner said police confirmed that the 12-year-old had “maliciously impersonated” her classmate by sending the threats via accounts under the older girl’s name and “intentionally lied to law enforcement and school staff to frame another person.”
Feiner said that once police confirmed the new evidence, they took “immediate and swift action” to clear the 13-year-old and charge the 12-year-old instead. She has been charged with felony written threats to kill or do bodily harm, falsifying a police report, disrupting an educational institution and criminal use of personal information, according to the Associated Press.
In the release, Feiner said it would be “inappropriate” to call the 13-year-old’s arrest wrongful because officers made the decision based on “all the available information known at the time.” According to the Sun-Sentinel, there were “multiple witness statements” from students and school administrators in addition to the physical evidence leading to the older girl’s November arrest.
Under Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act (MSDHSPSA), schools must have a “behavioral threat assessment instrument” to evaluate students and determine if they pose a “substantive” threat to their school. If this determination is made, law enforcement and mental health professionals may get involved.
The MSDHSPSA was created in response to the February 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. A former student at the school opened fire, killing 17 students and faculty members, making it the deadliest high school shooting in American history.
The Pembroke Pines Police Department did not immediately respond to Newsweek’s request for comment.
Update 2/11/22, 11:25 a.m. ET: This story was updated to add more information and comment from Pembroke Pines Police Captain Adam Feiner.
