Late in the night on Sept. 3 a Riverside Brookfield High School student reportedly sent a Snapchat message to a fellow student in which he threatened to shoot the student and some of his friends. The threat was sent to just one student but referred to other students and included racist and homophobic slurs.
Two mothers of students who were threatened spoke about the threat at the Sept. 9 meeting of the RBHS school board. One of the mothers, Margot Zamora, waved a printed copy of the Snapchat message during her public comment at the school board meeting.
Zamora told the school board that she wanted all of her son’s teachers informed of the threat.
Another mother of a threatened student also spoke at the meeting.
“I am basically here because awareness needs to be shared and things need to taken more serious,” said Colleen Nee. “On [Sept. 4] my son’s friends and my son were part of a school threat. The boy was going to come shoot at them at school.”
Nee said more people need to be made aware of the threat.
“This has not been told to any teachers for safety purposes, for the kids’ mental health,” Nee said at the school board meeting. “Nobody has been talked to. Parents do not know. There were racial slurs in there for every different kind of race.”
Nee said the boy who made the threat was arrested and released. Riverside Director of Public Safety Matt Buckley said he could not comment because the case involves a juvenile.
The mothers do not want the student who made the threat to return to RBHS. Initially, the mothers said they were told the boy was expected to return to school on Sept. 15, but after more meetings between school officials and parents, the school apparently changed course, and they were then told that the student who made the threat would not be returning to RBHS.
“The boy is not going to be at school,” Nee told the Landmark on Sept. 12 after meeting with school officials.
Héctor Freytas, the principal of RB, said he could not comment on what disciplinary actions were taken against the student who made the threat.
“I met with a parent who attended Tuesday’s board of education meeting to discuss the many systems in place at RB that ensure the safety and well-being of our students, which is always our number one priority,” Freytas wrote in an email to the Landmark. “I confirmed that she had met with members of the building administration on multiple occasions to discuss the incident prior to meeting with me and attending the board meeting. We cannot provide information about the involved student or pending disciplinary action.”
Nee said she wants the boy who made the threat to get help.
“The boy should not be here, and we would all like to see him get some help with his mental health,” Nee told the school board. “The kids do say that he’s had issues in the past of doing very bizarre behaviors. The school is aware, and nothing is being done about it.”
Zamora agreed.
“Definitely, this kid needs help far away from the school,” Zamora said.
Zamora said school officials were much more responsive to her concerns after she spoke at the school board meeting than they were before the meeting.
“They didn’t listen to us before the [school board] meeting,” Zamora said. “They did listen to us after the meeting.”
Update, Sept. 16, 2025, 12:15 a.m.: This story has been updated following further editing to improve grammar and the description of the threat a student made.