Charge added for student accused of making threat after knife found

A Hamilton High School student charged last month with a misdemeanor for allegedly making threats on social media to do harm at school is now facing an additional felony charge.

Cortlin Barrett, 19, was charged on Feb. 16 with aggravated menacing, a first-degree misdemeanor. When Barrett appearing in Hamilton Municipal Court on Thursday, he was served with an additional charge of illegal conveyance of weapons for allegedly having a knife in his back pack on school grounds. The conveyance charge is a fifth-degree felony.

He is scheduled to be back in court April 13 for a preliminary hearing. Judge Dan Gattermeyer set several conditions of that bond, ordering that he have no weapons, stay 500 feet away from all school properties and stay off of social media.

Hamilton police were alerted by the parents of a female student who is in the city’s school system but attends a different school.

“She goes to another school and she remembered that message we have been getting out, ‘If you see something, say something,’ and she did,” said Hamilton police Sgt. Brian Robinson. “She said something to her parents, and they called us right away and we started the investigation.”

The investigation determined that Barrett was solely responsible for making the social media threat, and he was charged.

Robinson said the second charge came after consulting with prosecutor’s office and considering the totality of the circumstances - the threat coupled with a small switch blade knife in the teen’s backpack.

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