A 12-year-old Crews Lake Middle School student was arrested on charges of making written threats to kill after a social media post tied to a viral "Cat in the Hat" trend, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said.
Sheriff Chris Nocco's office announced on X on Tuesday, Sept. 1, that deputies also charged the student with unlawful use of a two-way communication device. The threat was posted on social media and did not occur on campus, the agency said.
There was no immediate threat to campus safety and no public safety threat to Crews Lake Middle School, according to the sheriff's office.
The arrest is part of a wave of law enforcement responses to the "Cat in the Hat" trend, which USA TODAY reported features AI-generated imagery of the Dr. Seuss character from the 2003 live-action movie. Anonymous accounts have used the character's name or likeness to target individual students or schools with ominous messages, according to USA TODAY.
The trend started on Snapchat and spread to X and TikTok, where some videos depicted the character as a serial killer, Newsweek reported. The phenomenon has drawn comparisons to the 2016 "killer clown" social media scare.
Other Florida arrests
The Crews Lake student is not the only Florida juvenile caught up in the trend. A 15-year-old in Polk County was arrested after the FBI traced online threats to McCracken County High School in Paducah, Kentucky, back to a Florida IP address, according to USA TODAY. In the Panhandle, the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office arrested a 13-year-old from Crestview on felony charges tied to a TikTok post targeting multiple schools in that county.
Nationally, the trend has prompted arrests and school disruptions in Colorado, Kentucky, Texas, Michigan, Oklahoma and Kansas, among other states.
Sheriff's office urges parents to act
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office said it investigates all threats it becomes aware of, as WFLA reported. The agency urged parents and guardians to talk with their children about the legal consequences of posting threats online and asked residents to report suspicious activity quickly.
Residents can submit tips to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office online at pascosheriff.com/tips/ or call the non-emergency line at (727) 847-8102, Option 7.
