Legally Speaking for Parents: Electronic Threats
A serious matter of Text and Violence
By Marc Dwyer
I
was saddened recently to see yet another arrest electronic record, to conduct a mass shooting or an act
of a high school student for making a threat on of terrorism, in any manner that would allow another
social media. You may not have known this, but person to view the threat, commits a felony of the
the Florida Legislature has made it a crime to cyber- second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s.
bully, or to make threats to harm a person or a school 775.083, or s. 775.084.
through electronic communication. A lot of social
media posts, including Instagram and snapchat can
form the basis of a criminal charge. Florida Statute
ยง836.10 provides that any person who writes or
composes and also sends or posts any electronic
communication containing a threat to kill or to do
bodily injury to another person commits a 2nd degree
felony, which carries a maximum sentence of 15
years in State prison.
The verbatim language of the statute is as follows:
(1) Any person who writes or composes and
also sends or procures the sending of any
letter, inscribed communication, or electronic
communication, whether such letter or
communication be signed or anonymous, to
any person, containing a threat to kill or to do
bodily injury to the person to whom such letter
or communication is sent, or a threat to kill or do
bodily injury to any member of the family of the
person to whom such letter or communication is
sent, or any person who makes, posts, or transmits
a threat in a writing or other record, including an
12 | V O L U S I A parent M A G A Z I N E
With the increase in school shootings across the
country, law enforcement has to take every one of
these types of threats seriously. They cannot afford
to judge which of these may be a joke or which is a
deliberate threat, so they must take them all as threats
to our safety.