The person accused of sending a threatening Snapchat message to multiple Warren East High School students elected to have the case against him be sent directly to a grand jury.

Tristan Cardwell, 18, of Roundhill, faces a felony charge of second-degree terroristic threatening, with law enforcement alleging that he was responsible for sending an image over the Snapchat app of a box of .223 caliber ammunition sitting in a person’s lap with accompanying text saying “All my bullets to shoot up the school” to a WEHS student.

Cardwell was arrested Tuesday by the Warren County Sheriff’s Office and was released Wednesday from Warren County Regional Jail after posting a $6,000 cash bond.

He appeared Friday in Warren District Court with his attorney, Olivia Hester, for what had been a scheduled preliminary hearing, at which a judge considers evidence and finds whether probable cause exists that a crime has been committed and that the defendant is the responsible party.

Hester informed Warren District Judge John Brown that Cardwell would waive his preliminary hearing, allowing Brown to bind the case over to a grand jury without making a determination on probable cause.

“He’s a good kid, and never intended to cause harm to anyone,” Hester said in a text message after the hearing.

The investigation resulting in Cardwell’s arrest began after a school resource officer at WEHS was notified by school administrators that a student had received a message of “alarming nature” via Snapchat, according to court records.

The student who reported receiving the message said that other students had gotten the same message from the same person and provided the name of the alleged sender of the message.

Detectives sent an emergency request to Snap Inc. to retrieve records from Cardwell’s Snapchat account and were able to confirm that the image and accompanying message were sent from Cardwell’s account to seven people around 12:17 p.m. Tuesday, Cardwell’s arrest citation said.

“During the conversation, the recipient makes several statements asking Cardwell why he would send something like that and how this was very serious and not funny,” WCSO Detective Evan Cook wrote in Cardwell’s arrest citation. “Cardwell responded by saying that he was just joking.”

WCSO detectives located Cardwell at his workplace and he agreed to be interviewed.

According to his arrest citation, Cardwell confirmed his Snapchat user name and admitted sending the image to several people, and to buying the ammunition seen in the image earlier that day at a Bowling Green retailer.

“Cardwell stated that it was dumb to send the message but had no intention on doing anything,” his arrest citation said. “He thought it would be funny.”

Cook said in the arrest citation that Cardwell mentioned having an “AR style rifle at his residence,” but Hester clarified in a text message Friday that Cardwell  “has never possessed, or owned, an AR-15.”

Under Kentucky law, second-degree terroristic threatening can be charged against a person suspected of threatening an act likely to result in death or serious physical injury to anyone at a school function, workplace, place of worship or any gathering of three or more people.

The offense can also be charged against someone accused of making false statements for the purpose of causing the evacuation of a school building, cancellation of classes or school-sanctioned activity, or “creating fear of death or serious physical injury among students, parents or school personnel.”

Second-degree terroristic threatening carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison, but can also be enhanced to up to a 10-year sentence if it is found that a person “intentionally engages in substantial conduct required to prepare for or carry out the threatened act,” which the Kentucky Revised Statutes specifies as gathering weapons, ammunition, body armor, vehicles or materials required to make a weapon of mass destruction.

School administrators in Warren and surrounding counties have in the past several days responded to alleged threats and rumors of threatening activity, with recent separate incidents involving Henry F. Moss Middle School and South Warren High School resulting in the temporary lockdown of those schools as well as Jennings Creek Elementary School and South Warren Middle School.

WCSO investigated both incidents and found no weapons on any campus and no indication that anyone at either Moss or South Warren was in danger.

Several school district superintendents and local and state law enforcement officials have released statements reaffirming their commitment to ensuring the safety of school facilities and urging anyone with information about threats or other disturbing activities to contact the affected school or the Kentucky Safe School Tipline at (866) 393-6659 or online at www.homelandsecurity.ky.gov/SafeSchools.