A 17-year-old student faces charges after prosecutors claim she rapped about shooting up her school 'like Oxford'

• A 17-year-old student was charged after video showed her threatening to shoot up her school "like Oxford."
• The Genesee County prosecutor said in response that the video "is a crime and it will be treated as such."

A 17-year-old student in Flint, Michigan, is facing charges after she posted a "rap-style message" on social media with threats of "shooting up the school 'like Oxford,'" a county prosecutor announced this week.

Earlier this week, four students died after a shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan. A 15-year-old sophomore was taken into custody as a suspect.

On Friday, a 17-year-old student at the Flint Southwestern Classical Academy recorded a "rap-style message" on her phone in which she appeared to threaten to shoot up the school "like Oxford" and shared the video on social media, according to an assistant principal at the school.

The assistant principal then alerted the Flint Police Department of the incident. The Flint Police Department said the student, who remained unnamed, was not arrested and not found to have any weapons.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton charged the student as a juvenile with one count of false threat of terrorism and one count of using a computer to commit a crime; each carries a 20-year sentence, according to a press release.

Representatives from the Flint Police Department did not immediately return Insider's request for comment. Leyton also did not immediately return an email from Insider asking for further comment.

"My message to our community has been loud and clear over the years whenever we have had instances of so-called 'copycat threats' following a school shooting or other mass shooting incidents around the country and that message is that it is not a joke, it is a crime and it will be treated as such," Leyton said in a statement.

"I'm not going to try to figure out whether this incident in Flint today was intended to be a joke or whether it was a credible threat, the bottom line is that it's a crime," Leyton continued. "Michigan law specifically states that it is not a defense if the person did not have the intent or capability of following through on the threat."

Leyton went on to warn students that they could face "prosecution by my office" on top of possible suspension and expulsion from school for sharing similar messages as the Flint school student, "and that is not joke," he said.

"I want parents to hear this message, and I want them to have a serious discussion of this matter with their kids," the county prosecutor added. "Oxford is not that far from Genesee County and my heart goes out to the families of the victims, the school, and the entire Oxford community."