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Auburn police explained that a threat made last week first came to their attention from police in Auburn, Alabama, who learned of a threat being posted on Twitter by someone saying they were going to shoot up Auburn Junior High School. The IP address that the account had used came back to Spectrum in Auburn, New York. The APD was also contacted by officials from Facebook regarding a similar threatening message tied to the same IP address.

Detectives executed a search warrant at the residence connected to the IP address and determined that the phone used to make the threats belonged to a 14-year-old who lived there. The student told police that the statements had been a "joke."

A similar case arose three days later, when a 12-year-old threatened to commit violence at his school. Both students have been charged with making a terroristic threat.

In both cases, police said that there turned out to be no immediate danger of a threat being carried out, and while that is certainly a relief, schools and police are always going to take threat of violence seriously — as they should.

And the issue certainly isn't unique to Auburn, so we hope families far and wide don't make the mistake of believing that their school — or their children — are immune to this type of problem. And if anyone thinks that an anonymous online posting can't be traced, they should think again.

"Parents, please, we need your help," Auburn school superintendent Jeff Pirozzolo said in a letter to parents in the district. "Explain to your children the severity of the legal and school consequences that will be enforced for this behavior."

We couldn't agree more.

Young people will always make mistakes, because that's the nature of growing up, but any type of statement that threatens violence will always be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted because it is far from an innocent joke. Families need to help their schools reinforce this important reminder before another student interrupts a school day, puts unnecessary work on police agencies, and winds up in serious legal trouble.

Ë®¹ûÅÉAV Editorial board includes president and director of local sales and marketing Michelle Bowers, executive editor Jeremy Boyer and managing editor Mike Dowd.