The attorney for the 10-year-old boy accused of threatening to shoot up a school in Florida just four days after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, alleges that the minor I was joking.
Douglas Molloy told the Daily Mail that the texts Daniel Isaac Márquez sent to a friend were taken out of context and were part of children’s humor.
“ Based on the review of what has been provided to me, Daniel was texting with a friend and they went back and forth in a flow of texts about a variety of things”, argued the legal representative.
“And within that was what I can only call an attempt at humor- humor of a student fifth grade,” Molloy insisted.
“He made an unfortunate reference about assault rifles, but only as a joke, not related to any kind of attack in a school,” the lawyer continued. .
In Molloy’s opinion, the next conversation they had was about what excited Daniel was for Aquatic Day at school, a traditional event at the end of the school year.
“No there is a reference that ties the two things together. Something there is supposed to be funny”, he added.
“He didn’t say directly that he was going to shoot up a school. That is drawing a conclusion. There are more conversations, back and forth about the Aquatic Day and the events”, he assured.
“But nothing, absolutely nothing, regarding shooting or regarding weapons”, he pointed out.
The father of the minor Daniel was texting with was the person who alerted the Lee County Sheriff’s Department to the alleged text threats.
The defendant, an honor student at Patriot Elementary School in Cape Coral, was arrested on Saturday.
According to the arrest report, Daniel sent the following: “I scammed a friend”, this along with an image of money taken from Google.
“I bought this,” he shared seconds later with a photo of four assault rifles.
Subsequently, he sent: “Get ready for the day of the water (aquatic)”.
The suspect must remain in the Collier County Juvenile Detention Center for 21 days.
County Sheriff Carmine Marceno told the media that the department investigates each threat as if it were real.
“I ran a campaign: false threat, real consequence”, declared Marceno.