The Brownwood Police Department issued the following press release Wednesday morning following a social media threat made against Brownwood ISD Tuesday night:

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022, at approximately 6 p.m. the Brownwood Police Department was contacted by agents with the FBI regarding an online threat to blow up a school building.

FBI agents arrived in Brownwood and provided details of the threat, which was a video posted on a social media platform such as TikTok or Snapchat. In this video, a male subject purported to have placed C4 explosives at a BISD facility. The location of the explosives was not detailed in the video.

In the investigation, 25-year-old Shane Vernon Bedneau, of Brownwood, was identified as the suspect and further located at his place of employment in Brownwood. Bedneau was interviewed and denied following through with the threat; indicating that he was intoxicated when he posted the video and does not want to hurt anyone. Bedneau was subsequently arrested for Brownwood Municipal Court traffic warrants.

Detectives with the Criminal Investigations Division also applied for and received a warrant of arrest for Bedneau for Terroristic Threat placing the public in fear of Serious Bodily Injury. While in jail, Bedneau was served this warrant which had a bond set at $100,000 by Justice of the Peace Doug Hurt.

Bedneau was recently evicted from his home and has been staying in his vehicle. A search of the vehicle is being applied for to ensure there is no bomb making material present. Furthermore, Brownwood Police Officers and BISD staff members conducted a sweep of the BISD facilities throughout the night. No explosive devices were located, and nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

Bond has been set for Bedneau at $100,000. 

Brownwood ISD officials provided the following comments to BrownwoodNews.com Wednesday morning:

“There had been a social media post of a possible threat to a Brownwood school, it didn’t say which campus, it was real generic, but the FBI picked up on it and contacted the Brownwood Police Department and that’s who then contacted the school district,” said Brownwood ISD Deputy Superintendent Liesa Land. “(Brownwood Superintendent) Dr. (Joe) Young is out of state right now so (Brownwood ISD Director of Human Resources) Mr. (Douglas) Bonsal and I started communicating, as well as communicating with Dr Young. Mr. Bonsal then came over to the district about 11:30 p.m. and he and the police department went through every campus and central support just to double check. There was a walk through of all campuses and they have been canvassed. They do have the man in custody, so that’s why we feel it was safe to continue all activities as normal because he is in custody.”

Bonsal added, “When they interviewed (the suspect) last night, they said they felt like it was a pretty low threat level, but in today’s world you can’t just go off that. That’s why we put the steps in to have the police canvass our schools and those areas you think anyone could potential get in to. We walked the schools very thoroughly and looked for anything out of place and we didn’t see anything that concerned us. We did that before we allowed anyone back on campus.”

The investigation of the campus buildings concluded around 2:30 a.m. and information was sent out regarding the incident through the BISD website and its social media accounts at approximately 6 a.m. Brownwood ISD directors and administrators received word through a text message at approximately 5:30 a.m., Land said.

Bosnal offered this following message to the public, “If you make any kind of statement like that there will be consequences, pretty severe consequences. We will support law enforcement prosecuting anyone doing those things and using language about hurting kids, damaging buildings or anything like that.”

Brownwood ISD also extended its gratitude to the Brownwood Police Department for its assistance.

“We really appreciate our local police department,” Land said. “They were amazing, they were quick to respond, and we appreciate what they do for our town and our campuses.”