Northport mom requests transparency after son is investigated for making threat at school

A Northport mom whose son was recently suspended from Northport Middle School is speaking out about a situation she believes was mishandled by the school district, negatively impacting her child, their family and the community. 

Katerina Duarte, the mother of eighth grader Christian Duarte, contacted the Northport Journal last Thursday morning to share her story. Actions by her son were investigated as a threat after he made a “stupid and ill-placed” comment to a few classmates, she said. 

Christian, an honor student who is neurodivergent and diagnosed with ADHD, rarely has a verbal filter, Duarte said. “While what he did was not appropriate, his actions didn’t warrant several police officers interrogating him,” she told the Journal.

A day prior, on Wednesday, September 18 at approximately 6pm, a letter from Northport-East Northport Superintendent of Schools Dr. Dave Moyer informed the community of an incident at Northport Middle School (NMS). 

“I wanted to make you aware that this afternoon, we experienced an instance of a student making a violent threat against the school district at Northport Middle School,” the letter reads. “As soon as we were made aware of the threat, we contacted the Suffolk County Police Department and their investigation determined the threat to be unfounded,” it continued. 

On Thursday morning, a News12 truck and reporter stood outside the school campus as students entered the property, reporting on the threat and the rise of similar incidents across Nassau and Suffolk counties. The incident was not acknowledged at a board of education meeting that evening and, at this time, no other district communications regarding the matter have been released to parents of Northport Middle School.

As with similar events in the past, the district is unable to release specific details of the incident due to student privacy concerns. Duarte, however, is sharing her family’s story in the hopes of opening up conversation not against the school’s policies, but the process that follows any time an action or statement is perceived as a threat. 

According to Duarte, her son was in class, searching the internet for characters from the anime series “Attack on Titan.” Maintaining focus while having access to his Chromebook throughout the day is difficult for Christian, who she said is addicted to technology. Because of this, Duarte said, she works with him on how to search topics safely, without running into dangerous web pages or images. 

In the “Attack on Titan” anime, a “colossal titan explosion” occurs when the most powerful characters transform, creating an explosion similar to a nuclear bomb. 

The school’s search filters did not block the results of Christian’s search and images of a mushroom cloud appeared on his screen, visible to classmates sitting behind him. According to Duarte, when the students asked what he was looking at, Christian replied, “Just don’t come to school tomorrow, if you're nice I will tell you when. Just kidding.”

One of the kids felt threatened after Christian’s comment and reported what he said to school officials, the Duartes were told during the investigation.

Later, a classmate asked Christian if he really planned to blow up the school. Concerned about rumors being spread by his peers, Christian ran down to his counselor’s office. He was told that he can’t say things like that and was sent back to class.

Soon after, a security guard took Christian out of class and escorted him to the office of Northport Middle School Principal Timothy Hoss. He apologized for his statement and said he was joking, Duarte said. He was then sent to the student support center and told that the police were coming. His backpack and cell phone were retrieved, and his locker was searched. 

Christian’s parents were called and told to come to the school immediately. “No one told my husband what was going on; all they said was that there was a threat and the cops were coming,” Duarte said. 

When she arrived at NMS, Principal Hoss, another district official and an SRO (school resource officer) were with Christian. Two police sergeants arrived with bulletproof vests, handguns and handcuffs, she said. Christian was shaken up and scared about the process. She said that the police officers were very nice to Christian, but did tell him that he could’ve been arrested, and that other students have been arrested for less. “This is scary stuff for a kid,” she said. 

Christian was asked questions during the investigation and had a 10-minute telehealth call with DASH (Diagnostic, Assessment and Stabilization Hub), which assessed his mental health. 

Duarte was then asked by the officers if they could search her home and she agreed. She said she wanted to be transparent and, although she knew her family had nothing to hide, she’d want the police to find anything that would be perceived as dangerous if it existed.

After its investigation, the Suffolk County Police Department determined the threat to be unfounded. Christian was suspended from school for five days and will go through a reintroduction period when he returns, which will involve the cooperation of school officials and his parents. 

Duarte, an attorney who moved to Northport Village with her family four years ago, said she understands school leadership must investigate the situation when incidents like this occur. She does, however, question the response she experienced with Christian. The process was “very fast moving,” she said – she feels that school officials were more concerned about following protocol and reducing legal liability than protecting the mental health of her son. 

The afternoon would’ve unfolded differently if the process included “stopping and looking at my child, looking at the situation,” she said. She wishes Hoss and other officials would have taken time to understand the incident and speak to Christian – a student they know well – before bringing in armed officers. 

Duarte is also concerned about how other children might be treated in a similar situation. “For kids who aren’t living in a stable home, they would struggle after an incident like this and I worry about the aftermath,” she said. “A kid can go home and get beaten for this.” Transitioning back to school poses its own challenges, she said. 

Christian is now afraid of being ostracized when he returns to NMS in a few days, Duarte said. On the night following his suspension from school, he searched “when is suicide ok,” which his mother saw and spoke to him about. She is concerned about how he will reacclimate after this incident, especially because of the rumors circulating in the middle school and beyond, she said –  rumors that have not been made right. 

Christian’s sister, also a student at the middle school, returned to class to hear inaccuracies about her brother’s experience. One of her classmates heard that Christian had threatened to shoot the teachers and brought a gun to school; others badgered her for the real story. 

“It must be very scary for the other kids who see my son back Thursday since the rumors are spreading terrible things,” Duarte said. She believes the community email sent out by Superintendent Moyer could have offered more context. “When I saw the alert and I read it – it said a violent threat was made against the school. That’s inaccurate,” she said. She would rather the district explain what actually happened so that people can form their own impressions.

“I feel that if you had more transparency about what exactly is going on, you can have an open conversation,” Duarte said. “As a lawyer, I understand there’s that concern of too much information.” In cases like this, however, she believes providing more details would actually limit the district’s liability. Its current procedure in investigating these threats, she said, "causes more harm to the individual student and the student body as a whole.”

She understands that the district is not able to disclose the names of kids involved, but would have liked to see her son’s name cleared. “With transparency, you can also allow for healing and for the kids to integrate into the school in a better way,” she said. She’s afraid Christian will return to school and the people that don’t know firsthand what happened “will make assumptions, and it can change the trajectory of his life.”

In response to an email seeking comment on the matter, and the Duarte family’s perspective of it, Superintendent Moyer reiterated the procedures that standardly occur when perceived threats are made against the district, its schools, or its students and staff. “First and foremost, the district takes ALL threats of violence extremely seriously, regardless of a student or individual’s disciplinary record,” he said.  

“Although the district can conduct an internal investigation, we are not able to investigate student or staff behaviors off campus or on their personal property, including personal devices. For this reason, police involvement is often an important part of the investigation. They are our essential partners in dealing with threats of violence and their involvement is oftentimes crucial in our ability to determine if a threat is ‘non-credible.’ Sadly, we are living in a time when violence against schools is on the rise. As a result, our response to any threat is swift and no threat is considered ‘non-credible’ until it has been thoroughly investigated.” 

The district has a team of mental health professionals, as well as external partnerships with organizations such as Northwell Health, available to work with students who need support, Moyer said, “whether that is due to a transition back to school or due to concerns for safety following incidents of this nature. We encourage our families to reach out if their children may need this support and school officials can advise further.”

The superintendent discussed in detail with the Journal the process and procedures, including the social-emotional component, involved in situations like Duarte’s back in May 2024, immediately following the arrest of an East Northport student for making “threats of mass harm” on the social media platform, SnapChat. 

In that conversation with the Journal, Moyer said he understood why parents might be frustrated about the lack of information regarding what happened during these incidents and the consequences of those actions. He stressed a firm stance in taking these types of things seriously, saying that the district is not afraid to press charges or suspend kids for longer periods of time. “But I think if it was your kid, or your family, you would also want us to have some empathy and compassion, and help the kid,” he said at the time. Moyer said he tries to balance maintaining safety within the school while recognizing the public school system’s responsibility to help children. 

Greater transparency, though, Duarte said, would help with that balance, reassuring the community when threats are not violent in the way that’s perceived, and oftentimes implied by the media.

Culturally, she said, “we’re not really addressing the things that need to be addressed.” Kids are being taught to handle conflicts differently than they did decades ago, despite a child not having the capacity to differentiate between a truly threatening situation and an immature statement said by a middle schooler, she said. While she can respect the policies of the school district, Duarte continued, she also feels that if level-headed adults stepped in, perhaps initiating a process that involves law enforcement and community-wide notification would not be necessary in every instance. 

In her conversation with Principal Hoss, Duarte offered to stand on stage and tell students what happened to her son because she knows that most of them have searched inappropriate topics and made inappropriate jokes. Kids need to understand what can be perceived as a threat in this day and age, she said. 

Duarte said she’ll continue sharing her family’s story because she thinks it will be healing for Christian. She doesn’t want her son to be known for this incident, but rather for who he really is: a Sea Cadet in the Navy’s youth development program, cellist, member of the school chorus and aspiring Coast Guardsman who loves visiting museums in New York City and is able to make friends with anybody. This experience has been difficult for Christian and their family, Duarte said, but she’ll gladly be the poster child for protecting other children from the emotional impact of incidents like this one, and looks forward to fostering an open conversation between community members and the district that can help refine the process while keeping everyone safe.