Maine Man Sentenced to Over Three Years in Prison for Threatening to ‘shoot up’ Portsmouth High School

A Maine man was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Concord, N.H., to over three years in prison for making an online threat to “shoot up” Portsmouth High School in April of last year.

Kyle Hendrickson, 26, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

He previously pleaded guilty in December to one count of interstate threatening communications, and one count of possessing a firearm in a school zone.

“The defendant’s threat to ‘shoot up’ the Portsmouth High School sent a terrifying chill throughout the Portsmouth community,” said U.S. Attorney Jane E. Young in a Tuesday press release.

“I commend the FBI, the Portsmouth Police Department, the Portland Maine Police Department, the ATF, and all of our other law enforcement partners who did an excellent job in quickly locating and arresting Mr. Hendrickson to mitigate the threat and allow students to return to school,” Young said. “Threats to commit violence have no place in our society and those who make such threats will swiftly be brought to justice.”

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of N.H., Hendrickson posted a video to his SnapChat account on Wednesday, April 12, 2023, in which he brandished a gun while inside a vehicle outside of Portsmouth High School, alongside a text overlay that read “imma shoot up the school.”

Investigators were able to use school surveillance footage to place Henrickson’s vehicle outside Portsmouth High School at the time of the SnapChat Video, and law enforcement later recovered an AR-15 rifle, a shotgun, camouflage body armor, a handgun holster, a red-dot sight and numerous rounds of ammunition from his vehicle.

The handgun that Hendrickson used in the SnapChat video was also recovered near a motel where Hendrickson had stayed in Maine on the night of April 12, 2023, prosecutors stated.

“The danger posed by Kyle Hendrickson in this case was very real. He not only threatened to commit a mass shooting at Portsmouth High School, but he had the means to do it, illustrated by the AR-15 rifle, shotgun, and body armor that we recovered inside his vehicle,” said Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Boston Division. 

“Today’s sentencing sends a clear message – regardless of motivation, when someone is intent on conduct that may lead to violence and breaks federal law, the FBI and our law enforcement partners will move swiftly to bring them to justice,” Cohen said. “This type of behavior puts our entire community in danger, and simply put, we will not let it go unaddressed.”