Valentine, creepy video game, cookies get Box Elder High student suspended

BRIGHAM CITY, Utah – A valentine elevated concern for many parents at Box Elder High School in Brigham City this week. It came with a link to a video that had flames superimposed over the school. 

It was tied to a popular video game called Five Nights at Freddy’s. 

The video was intended to be a sort of scavenger hunt and a joke based on that but it scared a lot of parents. 

Now that student is out of school. 

It was the tone of the narration and the creepy music that in part evoked an unintended reaction. 

Box Elder High School sophomore Nathan Taylor said it circulated around the school quickly. 

The (creepy) Valentines video and scavenger hunt, was all based on a horror video game, but administrators say Box Elder High School students and parents understandably took it the wrong way. How it happened & what's being done about the student behind it, on @KSL5TV at 4:30pm pic.twitter.com/aQAxMgibYV

— Mike Anderson (@mikeandersonKSL) February 18, 2022

“It’s a little disturbing. There’s lots of pictures of like, specific people,” he said. 

“Young man at Box Elder High School brought 39 sacks, I believe, with a valentine’s card and a cookie in it,” said Steve Carlsen, the superintendent at Box Elder County Schools. “We feel strongly that there wasn’t an intent to do harm or actually threaten anyone, but he understands why it was certainly taken that way.” 

He said the pictures of kids were random, taken from the school’s social media accounts.  

The whole theme was based around Five Nights at Freddy’s, an online survival horror game series. 

It’s been featured in many viral videos. 

“I know the kid who did it,” Taylor said. “And he’s, I didn’t think he was really thinking about how it might hurt others. Like he’s a nice kid.” 

Taylor says he feels bad for the student, who he believes made an honest mistake.  

Carlsen said the student was suspended for causing a major disruption at the school. 

“He presented that as a scavenger hunt,” Carlsen added. “There was some fake flames that were in there.” 

Those fake flames were around the school building. Several parts of the video were understandably taken the wrong way. 

The video has now been shared more than 300 times. 

The original video has been taken down.  

Carlsen said the suspended student’s parents have chosen to keep him at home for the rest of the school year with online learning. 

There were also some cookies that were packaged with the valentines. A couple of students reported they thought they got a headache from eating a cookie they shared, however, the student’s mom told police she helped make them and they were not drugged or laced with anything. 

Carlsen added that a number of students also had the cookies and said they did not get sick.