A Fort Mill student didn’t say much online. It was enough to get him charged.

A 16-year-old Fort Mill High School student was charged with disturbing schools, though police say there weren’t any specific or credible threats to the high school, students or staff.

“There was a charge made,” said Maj. Bryan Zachary with the Fort Mill Police Department. There was not a custodial arrest made. That charge will be dealt with in family court.”

On Tuesday night Instagram messages began circulating from an account with an unknown author. One stated the author’s “legacy begins” on Feb. 17.

“It was vague with regard to exactly what it pertained to,” Zachary said. “Other than it said, ‘get ready Fort Mill.’ There were no specific threats described in these messages.”

Most of the message recipients were Fort Mill High students. Numerous students and parents contacted police Wednesday into Thursday morning. Some students began commenting the messages could reference a shooting. The school district became aware of the messages and worked with police.

Zachary said the “rather cryptic, but vague” messages didn’t name any person, group, school or entity. Students had a teacher workday on Friday, so there weren’t students there. Police were able to locate the Fort Mill resident and question him Thursday morning.

“There was no intention of causing harm to anyone,” Zachary said. “We were able to confirm that.”

Fort Mill High School Principal Dee Christopher emailed parents Thursday morning after “much conversation” and an Instagram message, he wrote, “with a veiled reference to harm being done to our students or school.”

The school, including assistant principals and the school resource officer, began investigating when information arose earlier in the week.

“This morning we have identified the author of the Instagram posts and continue working through our discipline process with the student responsible,” Christopher said. “Our school continues to be safe. Safety remains our first priority each day.”

Kelly McKinney, district spokesperson, said threatening or even vaguely threatening social media posts can cause concern for students and parents. The recent one at Fort Mill High wasn’t specific.

"Ours was not a direct threat,” McKinney said. “It was very vague.”

Christopher’s email came a week to the day after a police report was filed on a separate, potentially threatening incident at the school.

On Feb. 9, the school resource officer reported an incident that started with students arguing at lunch. A 17-year-old male responded to questions about the incident, according to a police report, by stating “it does not matter because I will not be here tomorrow.” The officer repeatedly asked what the student meant and told the student his words could be perceived as a threat.

The student, a Tega Cay resident, said he would “be either up there or down here” while pointing to the sky and ground and told the officer “you will find out tomorrow” what he meant and said he would commit suicide, the report states. The student met with a guidance counselor and a threat assessment was done, including contact with the school’s mental health professional.

As for the social media incident, Zachary said there are steps everyone can take to avoid confusion and concern in similar instances. The recent posts “could be interpreted any number of ways,” which can cause alarm. Posting from anonymous profiles doesn’t help. Then there are recipients, who can spread panic by stating or alluding to threats that may not be intended.

“These things perpetuate themselves,” Zachary said. “We want them to be mindful that with all the various opportunities on social media sites, once that information is out there, there’s no bringing it back. They just need to exercise caution in interpreting certain things.”

What students and parents did well in the recent case is to contact police. Zachary said his department and others want whatever information they can get, in the event it could help stop a potentially dangerous situation.

“It’s natural that people are going to have extreme concern,” he said.

Zachary hopes the recent incident will be a reminder of the power and responsibilities of social media.

“Only the people who are using it can control it,” he said.

South Carolina’s previously obscure “disturbing schools” law has come under national scrutiny since a 2015 inicdent at Spring Valley High School in Columbia that involved a police officer physically removing a student from her chair and handcuffing her in the classroom. That incident was captured on video that went viral.

This story was originally published February 17, 2017 at 4:00 PM with the headline "A Fort Mill student didn’t say much online. It was enough to get him charged.."