Monroe County Teen Arrested for Making Threats in Florida Keys

Sebastian Manuel Blanco, 13, of Naples, was arrested March 20 after sending a female juvenile a TikTok message containing an image of a rifle and the words "Now I'm going to kill you," the Monroe County Sheriff's Office announced. Blanco was charged with making an electronic threat to kill, cause bodily harm, conduct a mass shooting, or act of terrorism.

The victim, also a Naples resident, received the threat while visiting the Florida Keys earlier this month. Naples police investigated the incident and notified the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, which obtained an arrest warrant for Blanco. Law enforcement in Collier County executed that warrant, and Blanco turned himself in at the Naples Police Department with his mother present before being transported to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Center for booking.

"These are serious cases and I will not tolerate such threats made on social media or anywhere else," Sheriff Rick Ramsay said in a statement.

The arrest is the latest in a pattern of juvenile threats cases pursued by MCSO. In June 2022, a 15-year-old from Marathon was charged with writing or making electronic threats to kill or do bodily injury after posting a video on Instagram showing himself holding an airsoft gun and making threats. That teen admitted to making the threatening post, acknowledged posting additional videos portraying drug sales and use, and told authorities he had been trying to purchase a real handgun online so he could "take care of business." He was turned over to the Department of Juvenile Justice.

A separate case involved a 15-year-old Key Largo boy whose mother found a 9mm handgun in his school bag on August 11, calling deputies to their Largo Road residence around 1:45 p.m. The teenager was taken into custody without incident. Authorities later determined he had sent threatening messages to another juvenile, including a photo of himself holding the firearm with the muzzle pointed directly at the camera, captioned "RIP bro." He subsequently faced two additional counts of intimidation and sending written threats to kill, on top of the initial charge of possession of a firearm by a minor. Authorities noted the teenager was known to law enforcement from previous encounters.

Ramsay credited his agency's Threat Management Team with the investigative work in the earlier cases, saying, "I take cases involving those making threats very seriously.