Exclusive: Gun threat sent to Houston elementary student the night before school
HOUSTON - The night before 10-year-old Lakai went to his first day of fifth grade at Briargrove Elementary, his mom says he got a threatening video sent to his phone.
Alexa Long says the message stated, "Try me and find out" sent with a video of another student shooting a gun.
"The video was from a school bully who we’ve had issues with the past few years," said Long.
She says that night her son had trouble sleeping, as did she.
"He did have questions, direct questions, like, 'Mom, does somebody want to kill me? And why would they want to do that?"
She went to report the incident to the principal in person the next day. At the time, she says staff couldn't give her much information on what they could and would do. But, after a couple of days of communication, she says the school decided to remove the student who sent the video.
FOX 26 cannot verify what action the school did or did not take, that information is coming from Long.
"HISD did a tremendous job," she said.
The scary incident brings up a topic Long thinks all parents need to have conversations about.
"In 2024, there were 35 school shootings. We know 49 students died and 116 were injured," said Rania Mankarious, CEO of Crime Stoppers of Houston.
She says Crime Stoppers is a safe place for students to report weapon activity and violence anonymously.
"We’ve removed over 290 weapons from Houston area schools – because students have trusted us. But it's really important that when a student knows there could be a weapon on campus, they feel safe to report it because of the impact it can be severe," she said.
She says talking to your kids about weapons in school, violence, and even school shootings is very important.
We reached out to HISD for comment on the case. They replied with this statement, "HISD cannot comment on any specific incident or investigation, but all threats reported to HISD are thoroughly investigated by school officials and HISDPD as necessary."