High School Student Arrested for Seven Bomb Threats Against Own School

A teenager who repeatedly posted threats claiming to have planted explosives at his own high school has been arrested by police.

The Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Unit announced on the 20th that high school student A has been detained on charges of public intimidation and obstruction of official duties by deception.

Choi Sangsu, the presiding judge in charge of warrants at the Incheon District Court, conducted a pre-arrest interrogation for A and issued an arrest warrant, stating, "There are concerns about destruction of evidence and risk of flight," and added, "There are unavoidable reasons to detain the suspect, who is a minor."

From October 13 to 21, A is accused of posting messages seven times on the 119 Safety Reporting Center, claiming to have planted or to be planning to plant explosives at Daein High School in Seo-gu, Incheon, where he is enrolled.

On the 13th, fire authorities responded to Daein High School. Photo by Yonhap News/Reader Provided

Between the 13th and 17th, he posted threatening messages for five consecutive days, mocking the police with remarks such as, "You’ll never catch me. I bypassed with VPN five times, so you can’t do anything." A also wrote, "Thank you for your hard work over the past four days doing XXX. You’re the dedicated response team, so you did XX. I laughed at it while watching XX."

Due to A’s threats, Daein High School had to send home around 500 students on multiple occasions, and both police and fire authorities were forced to conduct searches and increase patrols on campus.

The police also suspect that A may have written online threats posted in September and October targeting five schools in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province. However, during police questioning, A reportedly denied all related charges, claiming, "Someone else wrote the threatening posts."