Florida sheriff’s granddaughter threatened to ‘shoot up’ school during prom, deputies say
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WFLA) — The teenage granddaughter of a Florida sheriff was accused of threatening a mass shooting at her high school prom on Friday.
The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the suspect, identified as Brook Gollwitzer, 18, is the granddaughter of Sheriff Emery A. Gainey.
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According to an ACSO arrest report, the FBI received a tip from Snapchat about a potentially threatening post that depicted students dancing at prom with the caption “yeah I’m shooting up the school.” The account was linked to Gollwitzer.
When speaking with her parents on Saturday, deputies said her mom told them that Gollwitzer’s Snapchat account was deactivated, but she wasn’t sure why. She confirmed there were guns in the home, but they were kept in a double-locked safe, and Gollwitzer did not know that they existed.
When Gollwitzer returned home, she told deputies that she wasn’t enjoying herself at prom and made the post as a “joke,” the arrest report stated. She said she sent it to five close friends, who also found it funny.
“The defendant acknowledged the severity of the statement and agreed that if she had read the same statement from another Snapchat user, she would believe that she was in danger,” deputies wrote in the arrest report.
Gollwitzer told detectives she does not have access to firearms and has never had thoughts of harming herself or anyone else. She was booked into the Alachua County Jail and charged with making a written or electronic threat to commit a mass shooting.
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