A US high school student reportedly faces up to 10 years in jail, after he was accused of threatening to attack school in a rap track.
In February, Michael Schmitt recorded a freestyle that sees him rap the words “u can suck my dick”, as well as the line “you’re gonna get cracked on the head like an egg, bitch.”
While no one is explicitly named in Schmitt’s rap, he references his New Jersey school in the track’s title.
“u lil sluts @ jchs i love u all even tho yall hurt me and i forgive u. i would never hurt u”, he titled the track.
But when a student at James Caldwell High School discovered the track, the school soon called police – with a SWAT team subsequently descending on campus.
Schmitt was arrested for creating a “false public alarm,” and faces a five- to 10-year sentence behind bars.
Fourteen weeks later, the 18-year-old is still under house arrest, and faces trial over the track which he maintains is a parody.
“They painted me as a school shooter, and that’s terrifying,” Schmitt told BuzzFeed.
Authorities disagreed: a school counselor told Caldwell's resource officer that Schmitt had expressed anger toward the school in the past. And while he claimed the gun in his photo was a plastic one borrowed from a friend, police later determined it was real. pic.twitter.com/wTtJbh6ob6
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) June 11, 2018
“Whenever these school shootings are happening, it’s scary to me that I’m being associated with that because of this rap song.”
But school principal Jim Devin maintains that the school did the right thing in calling police.
“He says there wasn’t a plan, but we don’t know for certain,” Devlin told BuzzFeed.
David Gray, Schmitt’s lawyer, said: “This is as serious as it gets. His life is on the line.”
Schmitt added: “It was like I was guilty the second I posted the song on SoundCloud,” Schmitt said. “They wouldn’t let me explain myself.”
Assistant producer Joseph Giordano will present Schmitt’s case before a grand jury in the coming weeks.