KENNEWICK, Wash. – The Kennewick Police Department (KPD) and regional law enforcement are investigating a possible school shooting threat posted on TikTok.
According to a KPD, the threat was a comment posted on a Tiktok video reading, “Mass cms school shooting on January 6th 12:30” that was screenshotted. This screenshot was brought to the police by a Richland School District student after it was sent to them on Snapchat.
The commented threat seen in the screenshot was made by an account with a single follower, not following any other accounts, and has a bunch of random letters as a name, according to KPD.
KPD believes that this threat may be a spoof or AI-generated, but it is still under investigation.
There is speculation that the comment is connected to Chinook Middle School, but KPD specifies that nothing connects the threat to Chinook Middle School.
As a precaution, additional officers will be present at Chinook Middle School on Monday, and a full-time school resource officer will be at all middle and high schools.
KPD has investigated multiple threats originating from social media and will continue to work with school districts to address rumored threats.
