Teen arrested in armed plot on US school
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Teen arrested in armed plot on US school*
From correspondents in Philadelphia
October 12, 2007 05:40am
Article from: Reuters
A 14-YEAR-OLD boy armed with a rifle and home-made grenades was arrested
overnight after confessing to plotting a "Columbine-like attack" on a
suburban Philadelphia high school, police said.
The boy, who was not identified, told police he was a planning an attack
on Plymouth Whitemarsh High School similar to the 1999 shootings at
Columbine High School in Colorado in which two students killed 13
people, said Joe Lawrence, deputy chief of police in Plymouth Meeting.
Acting on a tip from neighbours, police arrested the boy at his home in
Plymouth Township north of Philadelphia where they found one Hi-Tech 9mm
rifle with a laser sight, 30 to 50 pellet guns and four hand grenades,
one of which was live and three of which were still being made, police said.
No ammunition was found for the rifle, a prosecutor said.
The boy was schooled at home where he lived with his mother and father,
both of whom knew about the weapons, Mr Lawrence said.
The mother bought him the rifle at a gun show, he said.
Mr Lawrence declined to say whether the boy was inspired by events in
Ohio on Wednesday, when a 14-year-old student shot and wounded two
adults and two students and then killed himself.
Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor told CNN a student and
his father went to a police station around 7pm local time on Wednesday
to alert them about a planned attack.
The student told police "this suspect had tried to recruit him to be
involved in this Columbine-type of attack. The police acted on that
immediately and we had the boy in custody before midnight last night",
Mr Castor said.
He said the grenade was "not like a military grenade, there's BBs in
there" and that it was legal for a 14-year-old to own a BB gun.
No ammunition was found for the rifle, he said.
"We are evaluating now whether charges against her (the mother) or
anyone else in that household are warranted," Mr Castor said. "I think
that it would be impossible for both parents to be totally in the dark."
"I see no reason to believe that the school district could have known
this was coming," he said.