Record-breaking Safe2Tell Colorado reports were filed amid school threats

Threats against Colorado schools and viral misinformation spread on social media in September led to a 162% increase in Safe2Tell reports compared to the previous month, according to the attorney general.

According to a press release from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, students filed a record-breaking 4,729 reports of safety concerns with Safe2Tell in September, exceeding the previous mark set in February by 47%.

Safe2Tell allows students and other community members to report problems anonymously to school officials and law enforcement.

The rise in school threats also led to an unprecedented year-over-year increase, with Safe2Tell reports in Colorado increasing 74% from September 2023 to September 2024, state officials said.

“Typically after a tragedy like the one in Georgia, we see an increase in news coverage as students become more vigilant,” said Safe2Tell Director Stacey Jenkins, referring to the mass shooting at Apalachee High School last month.

The most commonly reported issues in September of this year – with hundreds of submissions in each category – were concerns about suicide, bullying, school safety involving staff, threats and planned attacks on schools, state officials said in the release.

There were also a record number of duplicate reports stemming from a small number of social media posts threatening schools, officials said.

“These posts were often shared, altered and misinterpreted, leading people to believe that the threats affected various schools across the state and country,” state officials said in the news release. “As a result, the same concerns were reported multiple times, even though they related to the same original posts.”

According to the press release, a tip from Safe2Tell led to the arrest of a Colorado student in September who posted on social media about explosives in his classroom and threatened other students not to go to school. Local law enforcement arrested the student who made the post and reported his account on the social media platform.