KENNEWICK, Washington (KAPP) -- If you saw a mysterious threat online with no idea who it could affect, what would you do?
For Ryan, a boy from Florida, taking action ended up preventing a threat from impacting Kennewick's Kamiakin High School.
Ryan was scrolling through TikTok one night in September when a disturbing video appeared on his feed. The video showed a color-coded map of a school with what appeared to be a plan for violence. Instead of scrolling past the alarming content, Ryan knew he needed to show someone else.
"He was very disturbed by what he had seen, and he immediately showed the video to his older sister, together they brought it to me and my parents to get our opinion on it," said Anthony, Ryan's brother. "14 minutes later at 11:44, we had given a call to the FBI Tampa [Office]."
At the time Ryan's family contacted authorities, they had no idea where the school in the video was located. After staying in contact with the FBI, they learned the threat had been made against Kamiakin High School, nearly 3,000 miles away from their homes.
Because Ryan's family reported the threatening video, Kennewick police were able to make a swift arrest, preventing what could have been a devastating attack on the school community.
The incident has left the Kamiakin community forever grateful to Ryan and his family. Students at the high school have organized an effort to show their appreciation through a special care package.
Bailey Vladimiroff and Cara Harpster, the DECA president and vice president at Kamiakin High School, are leading the initiative to thank Ryan's family. Their organization has been working to create a meaningful gesture of gratitude.
"We thought that it would really be meaningful to Ryan and his family, and so we started pitching to other classes to write letters to Ryan and his family, and the officer team collectively has been working to put together the care package," said Harpster.
The care package will include Kamiakin merchandise such as sweatshirts, blankets and pennants. But the most meaningful part of the package may be the hundreds of handwritten letters from students and staff throughout the school.
"A lot of people have expressed that their families are super grateful, that they were protected by Ryan, and I also took part in the letter writing and it was just kind of appreciative of the fact that he protected our entire school of over 2,000 people," said Vladimiroff.
A month after Ryan discovered the threatening video, his brother Anthony reflected on their family's decision to contact the FBI. He said they knew alerting authorities was the right thing to do and expressed hope that if the roles were reversed, someone from Kennewick would have done the same thing for their community.
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