Patriots' Julian Edelman, assistant help thwart school shooting threat

An NFL star may have just stopped another potential school shooting.

Julian Edelman, who is a wide receiver for the New England Patriots, was in Texas last month visiting friends when he received a message on social media, The New York Times reported.

The message said someone was going to shoot up a school. The message was posted in comments on a photo of Edelman in Austin on Instagram, CNN reported.

The same person who alerted Edelman also sent him a private message that said "Dude, there is a kid in your comment section says he s [sic] going to shoot up a school, I think you should alert the authority [sic]," CNN reported.

Edelman reached out to his assistant Shannen Moen, who was in Boston at the time, and she scoured all of the comments and found the message that said, "I'm going to shoot my school up watch the news," the Times reported.

Moen called the authorities, who tracked down the person who posted the message to Port Huron, Michigan.

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Officers there found a 14-year-old boy at the home that came up connected to the message. They also found two rifles that belonged to the boy's mother. The teen told police that he did post the threat, the Times reported.

Port Huron police Capt. Joseph Platzer told the paper that the boy's threat was against his middle school. The boy was taken to a juvenile detention center and charged with making a false report of a threat of terrorism. That's a felony that can carry a sentence of up to four years in jail, the Times reported.

Edelman plans on thanking the person who alerted him. Moen has reached out on the wide receiver's behalf, but the good Samaritan has not responded, the Times reported.

“We’re going to send him something, a care package, just for his work. He’s the real hero,” Edelman told the Times.

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