A Florida teenager sent a fake school-shooting threat while deputies were already inside her home investigating an earlier one, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said in a release.
Sixteen-year-old Lilyana Blanco used FortifyFL, a school-safety reporting system, to submit false reports involving herself, relatives, and other students in an effort to provoke swatting incidents at multiple schools and her own home.
The Criminal Intelligence Unit investigated numerous reports between Aug. 13 and Sept. 15 before taking Blanco into custody Sept. 16. The case now reaches back much further, with additional reports under review dating to October 2025.
The investigation has already consumed more than 300 hours, Sheriff Rick Staly said.
The First Tip
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On Aug. 13, FortifyFL received a tip claiming one of Blanco’s siblings had a firearm and had been “instructed to shoot up the lunchroom” at Rymfire Elementary School.
Criminal Intelligence Unit detectives traced the tip to a device inside Blanco’s residence, then went to the home to investigate, conduct interviews, and seize her cellphone as evidence.
While they were speaking with her mother, a second FortifyFL tip came in saying someone was headed to Flagler Palm Coast High School to “shoot it up.”
They responded to the school, quickly determined the threat was a hoax, and traced the tip back to Blanco’s residence, where they concluded she had sent it from a different device while they were still interviewing her mother.
Six Days Later
The unit returned Aug. 19 with a search warrant and seized numerous electronic devices. A forensic review of Blanco’s phone then confirmed it had been used to send the FortifyFL tips.
Nearly a month later, on Sept. 14, the app received a report claiming she planned to kill her family and burn down her house that night. The same tip claimed she had planned to kill someone at school earlier that day but decided not to.
Deputies returned to the residence to check on her and investigate. Blanco denied making the threats and claimed she had no access to electronics, but they traced the submission back to her.
Sept. 16
Two days later, detectives obtained an Order to Take Juvenile Into Custody for unlawful use of a two-way communication device and making a false report concerning the planting of a bomb, explosive or weapon of mass destruction, or the use of firearms in a violent manner.
They found Blanco in the parking lot of the Palm Coast Landings shopping center and took her into custody with help from the Fugitive Apprehension Unit.
During the arrest, they discovered she had a new cellphone that her mother had purchased and given to her after the Aug. 19 search warrant.
Blanco was taken to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility for processing, then transported to the Volusia Family Resource Center and turned over to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
At Home
Staly described the case as an extreme example of abusing a system that students, parents, and the community rely on to help keep schools safe.
“This girl repeatedly and dangerously abused a tool that students, parents, and the community rely on to help keep our schools safe, appearing to do so for no other reason than to cause fear, chaos, and waste our time,” he said.
“In fact, our agency has had to dedicate over 300 hours to investigate her baseless threats, and detectives are continuing to connect the dots on more threats they believe she made.”
He also used the case to urge parents to monitor their children’s electronics and online activity before turning his criticism toward Blanco’s mother.
“This never should have been allowed to happen, but this child was enabled by her mother, who knew she had a history of making false claims, and continued to allow her to access the internet with no restrictions,” Staly said.
“If she was looking for attention, she got it.”
Going Back Further
The Criminal Intelligence Unit is investigating numerous other false reports believed to be connected to Blanco dating back to October 2025.
They are also assisting other agencies with swatting incidents believed to have targeted schools and residents in their jurisdictions.
Additional charges may follow as those investigations continue.
All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.