HIALEAH, Fla. – A former Hialeah school teacher is under investigation after posting a series of strange videos on YouTube, including one in which he apologized "for not killing people's children."
Hialeah police Lt. Eddie Rodriguez said Sunday that detectives and federal authorities made contact with David Givins in Washington, D.C., and continue to investigate.
Givins is a former Miami-Dade County Public Schools employee who taught at North Hialeah Elementary School for 13 years.
His social media posts earlier this month caught the attention of police and the FBI.
"I apologize for not killing people's children," Givins said in one of the videos. "FBI agents, CIA agents, Department of Justice people, Congress, I apologize that I failed you all in not killing people's children."
In the same video, Givins also threatened to storm his former school using armored tanks.
School district spokeswoman Daisy Gonzalez-Diego said Givins was fired in 2014 because of teacher certification issues. She said school police spoke to family members who said they last saw him in May and that he had moved back to Washington, D.C.
"While we cannot ascertain the validity of these concerning messages, Miami-Dade County Public Schools has taken all possible precautions to ensure that there is no imminent risk to students and employees of the school," Gonzalez-Diego said in a statement. "The school district is working in cooperation with the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, the Miami-Dade Police Department's Homeland Security Bureau, the Miami-Dade state attorney's office and law enforcement authorities in Hialeah and Washington, D.C. Parents and employees have been notified of the situation. A full-time Hialeah police officer, as well as an armed guard, are assigned to the school."
Despite school officials' assuring parents that their children are safe on campus, some parents told Local 10 News on Monday that they fear for their children.
"He could be saying he's in Washington, but what about if he's here?" Nancy Lopez said. "People are crazy nowadays."
Others who knew the former teacher said Givins couldn't possibly have meant what he said.
"The fact that he went on there and said it was just to try to, like, get a reaction out of people, and he just got the reaction he figured he would get," neighbor Michael Llanes said.
Rodriguez said the investigation remains open.