VOLUSIA COUNTY, Florida — A 15-year-old former New Smyrna Beach High School student has been arrested on several felony charges after a Volusia County Sheriff’s Office investigation into a bomb threat he made on Twitter revealed plans to commit a mass school shooting.
Devon Foster of Edgewater was arrested Monday afternoon and charged with four counts of making threats to discharge a destructive device and one count of making written threats to kill or do harm. Foster admitted that he was planning the bombing and mass shooting. Based on the Sheriff’s Office investigation, evidence seized and interviews, deputies believe the threat was credible.
Deputies learned a student was in the school nurse’s clinic around the time of the tweet, showing signs of strep throat. That student was Foster, and deputies tracked him down in class and questioned him. At the time, he denied that he was planning any violence – he was just posting shocking things on Twitter.
Because of the serious nature of the threats, the Sheriff’s Office continued to investigate. Foster was taken into custody under the Baker Act on Sept. 4, was expelled from New Smyrna Beach High and has been under the care of an outpatient behavioral health program ever since.
Deputies seized Foster’s phone for a forensic examination and extracted hundreds of pages of text messages, web postings and photos. “The majority of the pages from the cell phone extraction report outlined Devon Foster’s obsession with death, mass killings and school shootings (specifically the Columbine shooting),” an investigator wrote in the arrest affidavit.
Foster wrote multiple entries about how first responders and school administrators “always forget the explosives” and illustrated making and setting off pipe bombs in a specific location of the high school. He also wrote of studying video from the shootings at Columbine High School and posted several images of himself holding firearms. One was a handgun, and another was later determined to be a BB gun.
Deputies obtained a search warrant for Foster’s home and searched it Monday. And while the search warrant did not reveal any bomb-making materials, investigators believe Foster had the knowledge and capability to obtain the firearms and build the types of explosives he had researched and planned to use.
