In a chat group devoted to school shootings on the Discord app, an 18-year-old in Indiana typed, “I’ll be honest. I’m close to shooting mine up. I have an AR-15.” A 19-year-old in Wisconsin responded, “That’s so cool!! But wait, do you have a solid plan?” The Indiana teen, with photos of infamous mass shooters posted on her bedroom wall, allegedly responded, “Parkland part two. Of course. I’ve been planning this for a YEAR,” according to court records in Morgan County, Ind. Twice before Feb. 14, she allegedly that Valentine’s Day would be the date — the same as the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 14 students and three adults dead. Another member of the chat had seen enough and contacted the “Say Something” anonymous reporting system set up by Sandy Hook Promise, the group founded by parents and loved ones affected by the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., reports the Washington Post. An operator at the 24-hour tip line notified the FBI, which quickly tracked down the Indiana teen and searched her home on Feb. 12. Her father had multiple AR-15 magazines and a box of .40-caliber ammunition. The teen told police that her father kept his gun in the car and that “he takes the gun away from her.” She told police she “did have a plan, and it was going to be similar to other school shootings.”
Trinity Shockley was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and threatening to commit terrorism. It was the 18th credible school shooting threat interrupted by a tip to the Say Something phone line or app since 2018, and the second so far this year. The push to stop murders in classrooms by families who’ve experienced them continues to yield success stories even as the federal government is dismantling some tools aimed at preventing school shootings. The U.S. saw a sharp rise in such events starting in 2018, a Washington Post database shows, when the number of school shootings soared to 30 after annually averaging about half that. The grim figure increased to more than 40 in 2021 and 2022. The number has dropped to 33 and 34 in the past two years, as Sandy Hook Promise pushes to spread word of the program through annual trainings and encourages students to report warning signs that could preface something worse. In addition to the 18 school shootings stopped since 2018, tips to the Say Something line have prevented more than 700 teen suicides nationwide, using in-school training sessions to teach students how to recognize a threat and report it, the group says.