The 16-year-old boy caught with a loaded gun at a Queens highschool Thursday had threatened to shoot up his college after posting messages on social media about how he hated exams, prosecutors revealed Friday as he was arraigned, officers mentioned.
The Benjamin Cardozo Excessive College scholar was charged with felony possession of a weapon and making a terroristic risk as an adolescent offender after cops discovered him toting a semi-automatic handgun in his backpack, one in all 4,000 taken off the road this 12 months, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch instructed reporters at a morning press convention.
The 9-millimeter Taurus GX4 – loaded with 13 rounds within the journal – was seized simply over two hours after the teenager allegedly posted an ominous Instagram photograph threatening that he was “Boutta Shoot the College Up.”
The teenager additionally posted on the the positioning that his points with exams prompted his actions.
“Basically, he made a submit on Instagram…threatening to shoot up the college as a result of exams obtained him ‘tight.’ Meta, whose dad or mum firm Instagram, took the risk severe sufficient to the place they knowledgeable the FBI they usually offered the FBI with the telephone quantity related to the account,” mentioned Assistant District Lawyer Mirza Hadzic.
“The FBI forwarded that info to the NYPD as a result of in addition they deemed it credible…They responded to the college.”
The swift investigation additionally led cops to the teenager’s bed room, the place two further 9-mm bullets have been discovered that have been suitable with the weapon, Tisch mentioned.
The weapon was discovered to have been “bought legally by a licensed firearm allow holder in South Carolina on January 9, 2025, making the time-to-crime 252 days,” the highest cop mentioned.
The Joint Firearms Process Pressure – which incorporates the NYPD and the ATF – has opened up an investigation to find out how the weapon made its manner from South Carolina to Queens, she mentioned.
The scare additionally prompted the set up of scanners at the highschool, which didn’t have them beforehand, the commissioner added.
“Traditionally, this has not been a scanning college, however there was scanning this morning, and there’ll proceed to be for the foreseeable future,” Tisch mentioned.
Throughout the scholar’s Friday afternoon arraignment, he sat handcuffed, sporting a tan hoodie and staring calmly forward.
Hadzic alleged Julien got here “dangerously shut” to finishing up a faculty capturing by bringing a loaded gun to high school.
Hadzic confirmed Supreme Court docket Choose Leigh Cheng a replica of the Instagram submit, in addition to a photograph of the seized handgun.
“What makes the risk actual and never a joke because the defendant claimed that it was, is that in his backpack that he had alongside with him there was a loaded firearm discovered within the backpack,” the prosecutor mentioned. “That firearm contained an prolonged journal….There have been two further rounds of ammunition discovered within the defendant’s bed room inside a backpack as nicely.”
The teenager’s lawyer, Albert Dayan, requested that his shopper be held on $100,000 bail, arguing that the teenager “doesn’t pose a hazard,” and was cooperative, “well mannered,” and “timid.”
He pushed for the case to proceed in Household Court docket, whereas Hadzic argued the seriousness of the allegations merited Supreme Court docket prosecution.
“The FBI took it significantly, the NYPD took it significantly and we intend to take it significantly, too,” Hadzic mentioned, as she requested that he be held with out bail.
Cheng in the end granted the teenager $100,000 bail and a $250,000 partially secured bond.
Whereas Cheng acknowledged the teenager didn’t have prior police contact, he known as the allegations “extraordinarily extreme” and issued an order of safety for the highschool principal.
The boy’s father and uncle, who have been within the courtroom, didn’t reply to The Put up’s request for touch upon the best way out.
The teenager will subsequent seem in courtroom Sept. 26.
If he’s convicted and granted youthful offender standing, he faces as much as 1 1/3 to 4 years in jail, prosecutors mentioned.
“As alleged, a 16-year-old scholar introduced a loaded gun into his highschool and threatened to do hurt,” District Lawyer Melinda Katz mentioned in an announcement. “Because of the short motion of our legislation enforcement companions on the NYPD and the FBI, a tragedy was averted. Gun violence has stolen too many younger lives in our communities, and we’re extraordinarily grateful that this incident didn’t end in anybody being harm or worse.”
Tisch, alongside Mayor Eric Adams, touted the recovered weapon as a part of an even bigger accomplishment for the NYPD to this point in 2025.
“This 12 months, we eliminated 4,000 unlawful weapons off our streets, and a kind of weapons was eliminated yesterday with a 16-year-old little one that was in possession,” Adams mentioned. “Stopping the movement of weapons is one thing that we want our federal companions to assist us [with], however what the police division is doing day by day – zeroing in on unlawful weapons – the weapons that we take away [are] saving lives.”
Tisch known as the milestone the “results of persistent, extremely proficient precision police work,” noting that for the previous 8-and-a-half months, NYPD officers seized a mean of 15 unlawful weapons per day.
In all of 2024, a complete of 6,150 unlawful weapons have been faraway from the town’s streets, and 4,061 individuals have been busted for gun possession, in keeping with the year-end crime statistics.
And greater than 23,700 unlawful weapons have been taken off the road for the reason that begin of Adams’ administration in 2022, the mayor mentioned Friday.
“These are 23,000 weapons that aren’t going for use to hurt harmless individuals, take the lives of members of the family, kill or maim our cops and numerous numbers of people who find themselves victimized by gun violence,” Hizzoner added.
The announcement got here days after the mayor’s administration report revealed that main crimes in New York Metropolis dropped practically throughout the board, with six of seven main felony classes seeing marked declines.
Tisch and Adams on Friday credited focused NYPD deployments in its notoriously high-crime “summer time violence discount zones,” gang takedowns, and “upstream options” corresponding to packages for the youth and the previously incarcerated for serving to to stifle the violence.
The announcement got here days after the mayor’s administration report revealed that main crimes in New York Metropolis dropped practically throughout the board, with six of seven main felony classes seeing marked declines.
Tisch and Adams on Friday credited focused NYPD deployments in its notoriously high-crime “summer time violence discount zones,” gang takedowns, and “upstream options” corresponding to packages for the youth and the previously incarcerated for serving to to stifle the violence.
“Every gun we take off the road has a optimistic and protecting impression that ripples out throughout our metropolis and uplifts each facet of our lives, however each firearm taking off our road is just one a part of the journey,” he mentioned. “The felony justice system is made up of a number of parts. We want our lawmakers and our judges to do their job…It will possibly’t proceed to be a revolving door every time we have now a capturing and see an extended checklist of gun prices on an individual who dedicated the capturing.”
“That sends a horrible message that we aren’t taking this violence significantly,” he added. “We’re doing in order cops – as disaster administration groups – we’re asking the opposite components of this technique [to] do your job. Let’s be certain that harmful individuals don’t undergo the revolving cycle of being again on our road.”
