Reporter's notebook - June 10

A bit of humanity

The FBI has its hand full already; bogus threats don’t make the job any easier.

The agency’s Albuquerque division on Friday announced “a campaign to educate the public on the consequences of posting hoax threats to schools and other public places, and reminds communities these hoax threats are not a joke,” according to a news release.

Public Affairs Officer Frank Fisher told The News the campaign also amounted to “a bit of humanity."

“Young people may not be aware that if they get angry and post a hoax threat… this could put a felony on their record at a very young age, and a maximum of five years in federal prisons,” he said. “We don’t want anyone to say, ‘Well I didn’t know.’ So get your fingers off the keyboard when you’re angry, and if you want to say something, take a breath. … Realize that if you go ahead and post that hoax threat to shoot (up) that school or any other public institution that you have a beef with, law enforcement will come looking for you.”

Officials often see an increase in such threats after headline-grabbing mass shootings at schools, said the release.

" Usually after a school shooting, wherever they happen, we see around the country an uptick in hoax threats, copy cats, so we just want to get the word out,” Fisher said, though he declined to go into many specifics. “After the Parkland shooting that happened in Florida, we had dozens of hoax threats in the state of New Mexico.”

Addressing those threats takes up limited law enforcement resources, not to mention school or other entity closures that often ensue.

Briefly stated: think before you post, says the FBI. The advice might be applied to all manner of social medial postings, but in this case a fake threat can mean real legal consequences.

— Compiled by Staff Writer David Grieder