Eastside student arrested following bomb threat

An Eastside High School student was arrested Tuesday evening after posting a false report on Instagram that morning.

Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) detectives took Carlisha L. Williams, 17, into custody after Williams posted a threat mentioning a bomb and shooting Tuesday morning.

According to ACSO spokesperson Art Forgey, law enforcement received notification of the threat at 9:49 a.m.

“We did not evacuate, but sheltered the kids in place,” Forgey said in a phone interview. “We locked down the school perimeter and held the kids in classes.”

Deputies conducted a search and cleared the school. Forgey said investigators detained Williams for an interview at 3:24 p.m. and then arrested her by 7 p.m.. 

Williams is facing charges of making a false report concerning the use of firearms in a violent manner on state property and making electronic threats to kill, do bodily injury, or conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism.

This marked the 18th false bomb and/or shooting threat in the Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) district since Aug. 19. It’s the fifth hoax at Eastside, the most of any campus.

Williams becomes the ninth student arrested since the false reports began. The schools affected have included Buchholz High School (four threats), Newberry High School (four), Gainesville High School (four), and Oak View Middle School in Newberry (one).

Authorities are charging three of the students as adults. They include eSchool student Reginald Copeland, who placed a threat against Eastside on Oct. 6, Newberry High students Ransel Lugo and Sarah McKay for making both fake bomb and mass shooting threats at both Newberry High and Oak View Middle School, and Buchholz High student Preston Powers for making two BHS threats. All four students were transferred from juvenile detention and to the regular Alachua County Jail, according to ASCO reports.