Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office on Alert After Viral TikTok School Threat Challenge

Muskingum County, Ohio- Over the course of the last few days, a TikTok challenge went viral, but this time, it wasn’t a positive one and led to school closures nationwide, and left families in a panic. 

According to Muskingum County Sheriff, Matt Lutz, this TikTok challenge encouraged individuals to cause violence and havoc at school.

Sherriff Lutz said there wasn’t anything mentioned locally or directly, but once the Sheriff’s Office became aware, they took immediate action throughout all Muskingum County Schools.

“The school’s felt is was necessary to send out a notice last night that they were aware of it, our school resource officers were aware of it and we actually put some extra cars out this morning around school taking up at the high schools and junior high and we kept those guys over to work some of our elementaries just to be in the area to make parents feel more at ease and to also send a message that we don’t take this stuff lightly,” Sheriff Lutz said.

This was brought to the office by their Buckeye Sheriffs Association along with Homeland Security and other associations, who all work together and monitor situations like these to keep the people safe.

Due to so many individuals now having the TikTok app and following so many different people, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where and who started this trend, however, Sheriff Lutz shares what will be done if anyone is found making these types of violent threats.

“Obviously the school is going to take action on suspending them, possibly expelling them for the year. Obviously we’re goin to do what we can to get charges filled with the prosecutor’s officer on these cases and you don’t even necessarily have to carry through with something like this,” Sheriff Lutz stated. “If you’re talking about this, if you’re making threats about this, you’re inducing panic, you’re causing a response from law enforcement, there’s some different things that can be done depending on how far this goes.”

Parents should know that there are evacuation plans in place for students that are set by the School Resource Officers.

Sheriff Lutz also encourages parents to always educate their child on gun violence, how to use social media appropriately, how to respect and treat people, and always to monitor what their child is watching, following and creating on the cellphone, and laptops.