Father of teen arrested for school shooting threat has a warning for all parents

A father whose sixteen-year-old son was arrested for threatening to commit a massacre at his high school has a warning he wants all parents to hear.

A family nightmare

The father, who wanted to be anonymous for the report, said that his son had been bullied at school because of his behavior problems. He was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.

His son wrote a detailed post on Facebook in 2012 describing how to commit a mass shooting at his school.

When police were notified about the post, the teen was arrested.

A portion of the Facebook post read, "act like its a fight, walk in, shoot them both. its kinda sound proof in their (to and extent) then 7:15 go to the cafeteria, open fire, hit maybe 30 people. head shots of course, so they die, no survivors. then once everyone runs, shoot the lights (damage to property, causes panic) start on A hall, go to teh nurses, end them, prevent them from helping people..."

"I was mortified with what I saw," the father said. "I didn't know my son was capable of that."

He said that they liked to go hunting together, but that his son never displayed interest in guns.

“Well, ultimately, it was devastating,” the father said about the effect of the threat on his family. “Everybody split up. We’re all kind of off in the wind. It's been a while now, but it ended kind of in tragedy really."

The son was expelled, and the legal fees and court-ordered mental health therapy emptied the family's funds. The parents later divorced and the siblings don't speak to each other.

"His life choices were just severely limited after that moment," the father said of his son.

"We can't just brush some of them off," the father said about threats. "It's very painful. Very painful for a lot of people involved, but it has to be taken seriously."

"Talk to your kids. Even if you talk to them once, talk to them again. A post online, a text to a friend can affect the future of the entire family," said Dan Haggerty of

Here's the video of the news report: