18 year old faces up to 4 years in prison after threatening high school students on social media

Tuesday, February 20, 2018
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Asanté Freeman has been arrested and charged with making felony criminal threats after police learned of a recent Facebook post he made threatening gun violence at Fresno's Cambridge High School.

"Many friends encouraged him to take the post down to quit making threats but he ignored them. In fact, he made a comment that the police weren't going to do anything about it, well he was wrong," said Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer.

Detectives tracked him down and according to them, Freeman admitted to making the posts but said he was only kidding.

"No one else knew it was a joke, that's the problem and that created a lot of fear--which is why he's been arrested," said Dyer.

Freeman is a former student who graduated from Cambridge last year and now faces the possibility of prison for the threatening social media post.

"If he has no criminal history at all, he's looking at four years in state prison," said Defense Attorney Mark Broughton.

According to Broughton, the state could try to make an example out of Freeman, considering the posts were made in the wake of the Florida school shooting.

"You don't know the person who's making these threats is somebody who's actually going to go out and follow through with them. It's incumbent on the government to go out and investigate those things," said Broughton.

Fresno Police takes every one of those posts seriously.

"We're going to do everything we can to pursue prosecution because what he did was instill fear in a lot of students and a lot of parents and for that, he has to pay the price," said Dyer.
Copyright © 2024 KFSN-TV. All Rights Reserved.