Skip to main content

Sheriff: 2 teens gave false report of active shooter at Charles Co. middle school

Two 14-year-olds have been accused of calling in a false report of an active shooter at Matthew Henson Middle School in Charles County, Maryland, on Tuesday morning.

The teens, who are students at Matthew Henson, used another student’s phone to call in the false report just before 10 a.m., the Charles County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Wednesday.

The report caused a lockdown at Matthew Henson Middle School and a lock-in at J.C. Parks Elementary School nearby.

Investigators determined that the call, which came from inside the school, was false and that there wasn’t an active threat. Both schools were cleared to resume normal activities about a half-hour later.

“We take this extremely seriously,” Katie O’Malley Simpson, director of communications for Charles County schools, told WTOP. “Filing a false report can result in a range of school action disciplines up to a school expulsion.”

The teens could face up to six months of incarceration and up to a $500 fine, the sheriff’s office said.

WTOP’s Megan Cloherty contributed to this report. 

Md. coal-fired power plant will retire 5 years early — before worker retraining kicks in

This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today. The operator of the second largest coal-fired power plant in Maryland announced that the plant will retire next year, which is five years earlier than previously announced. GenOn Holdings plans to shut down two of its 50-year-old coal units at Morgantown Generating Station in Charles County by June 2022. The two coal units together have a capacity of 1,229 megawatts of power. Maryland consumes about 60 million megawatts each year. In December, the company announced that it would cease coal operations by 2027, so this is a substantially accelerated timetable.
Read Next Story