DALLAS -- There are thousands of pictures on social media websites of students posing with guns and rifles.
At Dallas ISD, just trying to keep up with all the pictures and investigations into other threats can be overwhelming.
"With 158,000 students and vast majority a lot of them with the ability to have cell phones and social media on them, for us to be able to track those number of students, it's nearly impossible,” said Dallas ISD Police Chief Craig Miller.
In most of the pictures, authorities don't believe the students are planning any mass shootings. They believe the kids are just trying to act cool.
The students don't fit the profile of mass shooters like in Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland, but authorities can't take the chance.
Departments are overwhelmed with keeping up. DISD won't comment on the pictures but said on a daily basis, the department is inundated, chasing down threats.
"It's really labor intensive. I don't think people probably realize you know sometimes how many traps we're out there chasing,” said Miller.
So, how can they predict who the next mass shooter will be? What's real and what's not?
"The best source of intelligence we'll ever had is from the kids themselves. The kids at the school know one another. They know friends who are making threats. They know friends who possess weapons,” said Chief Miller.
They encourage students to not only see something, but also say something and actually do something.
DISD has programs to help kids who are having issues. They hope that by monitoring troubled students that may be the answer to stopping this from happening here