The identity of the individual who called in a bomb threat to Gainesville High School on Nov. 11 was discovered this week by Gainesville Police.
Tyree Nigel Harris, a 15-year-old GHS student, called the front office using a TracFone around noon and said “bomb threat” to a school secretary before hanging up. Teachers, staff and about 1,900 students were evacuated while officers and four canines cleared the campus for explosives.
The following day at about 8 a.m. the same phone number called the front office and told the secretary about another bomb threat. Gainesville Police then served a court order to Verizon Wireless to obtain call records for the phone number.
Officers then located Tyree and his father, Simon Peter Harris Jr.
Initially Tyree denied that he made the bomb threat, GPD spokesman Officer Ben Tobias wrote in an email. Police then searched through Tyree’s cell phone and saw that he had texted Fredrick Days Jr. about the bomb threat.
Days Jr. told police in an interview that Tyree had talked about making a threat and thought he would not get caught because of his TracFone.
Harris has been charged with two counts for falsely reporting a planted bomb, a second degree felony in Florida.
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 12/2/2014]
