NEED TO KNOW
- A Florida mom is charged with threatening to discharge a destructive device after she allegedly told a cafeteria worker that she would blow up her child’s school in Rockledge
- Police claimed that Brandie Covington, 40, was “irate because her daughter’s boyfriend had his school supplied lunch taken away from him, due to lack of funds in his account”
- Covington, who police said has denied making threats to the school, was arrested and later released on bond
A Florida woman was arrested and charged after allegedly making threats to her daughter’s high school over an incident involving school lunch.
According to a court document filed in Brevard County, 40-year-old Brandie Covington is charged with threatening to throw, project, place or discharge a destructive device after she allegedly threatened to “[burn] the school down” during a heated exchange with school employees.
Per an arrest affidavit obtained by PEOPLE, police were called to Rockledge High School — about 50 miles outside Orlando — on Tuesday, Oct. 21, after a cafeteria worker reported she had received a threatening call.
The caller, identified as Covington, was “irate because her daughter’s boyfriend had his school supplied lunch taken away from him, due to lack of funds in his account,” the police report explained.
Police said Covington began to “yell and cuss” as the cafeteria worker was explaining the process of “dealing with students without money in their account.”
The employee then told police that Covington said she would be going to the school district’s office, and then she would “be over there to blow that f—— school up“ before hanging up.
A school resource officer then reported the phone call to police, who arrested Covington at her home later that day.
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Police, who spoke with the mom at her house, wrote that “she acknowledged she was ‘pissed‘ when she made both calls … as she called last week and was told an employee of the school would call her back, but never did.”
Covington denied making threats to the school, police added.
In Florida, threatening to discharge a destructive device is a second-degree felony and could carry a maximum penalty of up to 15 years in prison and as much as $10,000 in fines.
Covington was later released from the Brevard County Jail Complex on Thursday, Oct. 23, on a $75,000 bond, per Florida Today. She is set to appear in court on Nov. 18.
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