Marshfield: Teen charged with ‘threats to commit murder’ and ‘promotion of anarchy’

A 17 year old Marshfield High School student has been ordered held on 1,000 dollars cash bail — after he was arrested early Wednesday morning by police – and accused of making threats to kill a fellow student.

Prosecutor Josh Gedraitis, in asking for 25 thousand dollars cash bail, alleged that 17-year-old Kyle Stockford, who faces charges of threats to commit murder and promotion of anarchy — made several threats against other students, through social media, specifically Twitter, and at least once in person – earlier this week – to a 14 year old girl, who later went to police.

“She stated that she is aware and knows the defendant,” according to Gedraitis.”Yesterday, the defendant said something during class that caused many in the class to laugh, at that point, the defendant pointed at her and said the he would shoot her.”

Gedraitis says Stockford also posted social media messages that led authorities to believe he was planning to do harm.

According to authorities, that 14 year old girl led authorities to Stockford’s Twitter page, where according to Assistant District Attorney Gedraitis, several tweets caught the attention of authorities.

“They included on 10/14 at 9:41pm the quotation ‘f*** suicides -  school shootings are in!’ with a punctuation mark, end quote,” said Gedraitis in court. “On 10/15 he posted on a multimedia program, Instagram, through Twitter, the words “Plotting Something” with a posted photograph and that posted photograph is a display of numerous architectural drawings of a building.”

In court, prosecutors revealed authorities originally feared the photos were of Marshfield High School.  They turned out not to be.

Defense Attorney Eric Craine says this case is an example of prosecutors piecing together social media posts and accusations, combined with “a Bad Joke” that was “Blown out of Proportion.”

Judge Fran Marini who ordered Stockford held  $1,000 bail, told the teen, who did appear in court wearing handcuffs – “If this is a joke — Welcome to Adulthood, Young Man”

Stockford is due back in court November 7^th.

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