‘Advanced’ School Shooting Plan Stopped Just in Time
- Posted on August 5, 2011 at 7:09pm by
Jessie Abrams
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As students and their families across the country gear up for the school year ahead, dormant fears of school violence pick up again too. Those worries were almost realized at a high school outside of New Orleans on Friday. Police were able to foil another plot aimed at killing at least one faculty member and one student at a high school in Covington, Louisiana just days before classes are scheduled to begin. Scarier, if that’s possible, is that this school in particular made an active effort every single week to avoid this kind of violence from passing through its hallways.
“In my nearly 30 years of law enforcement and in this parish, this is the most advanced plan that I have seen to date that was, potentially was a threat to our school kids,” said Sheriff Jack Strain, one of the officers heading the investigation, in an interview with the local news stations.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/i-dont-get-it-warren-buffett-tells-fox-business-downgrade-doesnt-make-sense/
COVINGTON, La. (AP) — Authorities in suburban New Orleans said Friday they uncovered a plot by three teenagers for “an incredible and devastating” attack at their high school during the first day of classes, with plans for two specific targets, indiscriminate shooting and suicide.
The 15-year-old boys, who called themselves Day Zero, identified a student and a faculty member whom they planned to kill, Sheriff Jack Strain said in a conference call with reporters Friday. They also planned indiscriminate shooting, as well as firing at any sheriff’s deputies or other officers they saw and taking their weapons, said Capt. George Bonnett, a spokesman for the sheriff.
“Like many other cases similar to this, they fully intended to end this episode with taking their own lives,” the sheriff said.
Schools start Monday in St. Tammany Parish. Schools Superintendent Trey Folse said other students at Lakeshore High School told school officials about the plan on July 17, and the officials immediately notified him and the sheriff’s office.
“These kids … were planning to carry out an incredible and devastating attack on a school. To me, the bigger story is this office worked with school authorities to make sure this didn’t occur,” Strain said.
Principals talk at least once a week with sheriff’s office supervisors and Folse talks at least once a week with him, Strain said.
Most schools stepped up security in the aftermath of the 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School near Denver, Colorado, where two students fatally shot 13 people and themselves.
The three teenage suspects were being held at a juvenile detention center on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism and more charges were possible, the sheriff said. Conviction on the conspiracy charge could keep them in detention until they turn 21, Bonnett said.
“They made no attempt to deny their involvement with the plan and admitted their intentions,” police said in a news release. “All three were cooperative with investigators.”
Strain said he did not know whether the students had problems at school. He said he did not know of any prior arrest record.
Because the boys are juveniles, their names have not been released by authorities. Strain said he did not know if they had attorneys.
Judging from the amount of material confiscated and the detail of the plans, Strain said, the boys apparently had been planning the attack throughout the summer. He didn’t know if the targets were chosen because of something that happened last school year.
He would not say whether they already had guns or where they planned to get them, nor would he comment about a possible motive. But Bonnet said it wasn’t race, because the arrested boys are of different races.
Strain also didn’t know whether Day Zero might have had more than three members, adding, “But from every shred of evidence we have collected and every shred of intelligence we have been able to garner, we don’t believe there were any other participants” in the alleged plot.
The boys turned themselves in this week. A bond hearing Monday will decide if they can leave the detention center.
Strain said extra deputies are always posted around schools on the first day of classes, and Monday will be “all of that and then some … Steps most parents will readily notice, and steps that not even students will see.”
He quickly added of the enhanced security, “I don’t want anyone to think this will happen one day and then it will be over.”
He wouldn’t give details.
One of the boys is from the Mandeville area, an affluent bedroom community about 25 miles north of New Orleans where the school is located. The other two were from nearby Lacombe, a slightly less affluent and rural area.
Folse said he did not know how many students reported the threat or how worried they were. “It alerted them enough to turn it over to authorities, with trust that the people they alerted would look into it and take it seriously.”
“I’m very proud of them for stepping up and doing the right thing,” Folse said.
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SREGN
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 1:42pmWell let‘s hope they’re white so they will be punished.
Report Post »tankyjo
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 1:20pmSeon, back to France, or what ever socialist country you escaped from. Has nothing to do with guns, or gun laws, it’s the dumbing down of our culture, and, largely the result of Americans subjecting themselves to the nanny state, period.
Report Post »seon
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 12:49pmOnly in America would teenagers be able to easily buy guns to carry out these kinds of attacks.
Report Post »loriann12
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 7:55pmYea, it’s easy for criminals to get guns, but they want to make it extremely difficult for law abiding citizens to own a gun. What do you think will happen to the crime rate if they get their way? I’ll become an outlaw and get a gun off the grid, too.
Report Post »Fear The Voices
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 9:58pmI don‘t think it’s accurate to say they were going to “legally” buy guns.
You should be more concerned about the involvement of the grand regime leader and his injustice department putting gins in the hands of Mexican drug gangs.
Report Post »dontbotherme
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 12:29pmI’m glad they caught these punks before anyone was hurt or killed by them.
Report Post »Uechi
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 12:11pmThese kids are not old enough to buy or legally own a firearm. This means that the firearms they planned to use were either stolen or taken from a relative. In the latter case parents/relatives need to be responsible enough to know what there kids are doing and at a minimum not let them have easy access to firearms without supervison.
Report Post »Lesbian Packing Hollow Points
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 11:13amThe Columbine Massacre was not a tragedy. Tragedies are accidents or acts of god. (Acts of an accidental god?) Columbine was carried out by human beings. That means it was an atrocity. I really wish people would learn to distinguish tragedies from atrocities.
The weather washing out the road and a bus full of students crashes into a ravine because of it, killing all on board, tragedy.
A deranged bus driver deliberately driving his bus full of students over the edge into a ravine, killing all on board, atrocity.
Report Post »whitefield
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 11:41amAgreed. Some would call it semantics. I call it paying proper respect to the intent of words. In this case, atrocity would be a fitting word.
Report Post »nysparkie
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 10:37amYa wanna know why those that can Home School? Well, the liberal agenda aside. This is right near the top. Why send your kids into a zone where there are other kids that can act like this and the Parents of those kids are clueless. All goes back to two parents working to pay the stinkin bills that are coming out of Washington and most State Capitals. Look at the marginal tax rate of the 50‘s and early 60’s. Then look at it now. There is one answer why two parents have to work.
Report Post »junkmaninohio
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 10:34amAre they muslim kids? Just asking.
Report Post »freeweever
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 10:31amWhat a time it is when as a kid this is what you want to do with your time. Fifteen minutes of fame has gone too far and to say they are just screwed up is too easy of a scapegoat. This violence is being bread through television, the games we play, and the lack of debriefing after seeing and playing this violent life. There is no explanation to these kids of their true feelings in life today just drugs and Ridilin. I’m not mushy I promise but we are creating these kids with no cognition of thought just cheat codes America suck. Every day of their lives now thru the indoctrination these students get brainwashed from the progressive left that leaves the kids feeling distraught and guilty for something they had nothing to do with. Just like they try to do to all of us in America but these kids are so malleable and impressionable that they feel frustrated and sick of the guilt so they do this sort of twisted act of violence just like “al gore” and fox/piven and all progressive left asks for, “an uprising”. Here it is democrats your comeupins have rose. It is your baby democrats your the twited violent freaks and creeps who throw glitter,blood,paint rocks cars,burn housed E.L.F.-peta-N.O.W.All losers in the game of righteousness, you will always lose.
Report Post »junior1971
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 10:24amIs lib+ard a bad word or something? What is a lib+ard?.) lol
Report Post »Affirmative Blaction
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 12:15pmthe + (plus sign) is code for the letter T, get it, its a combo word of liberal, and uh er, a derogatory synonym for mentally challenged, do you understand. I see why it was censored now, comparing the mentally ill to a liberal is an insult to the mentally ill.
Report Post »theothertoolbox
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 9:54amNot about race…these boys must have been black kids or Hispanic. Different races = newspeak for minorities. LOL This is the LAST we will ever hear of this plot.
Report Post »Utahdrifter
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 9:09amAnd the mid-east is coming to a town near you. Lucky us!!!! Thanks dimocrats!!!!!
Report Post »Shellback
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 9:01amBased on what I read, they boys sound like they are playing some kind of video game. They seem so detached from reality.
Not that I actually want them to die, but suspending them over the water just out of the reach of the jaws of gators might snap them back into reality.
Report Post »MONIFICENT
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 7:35amAnybody want to guess what or nevermind glad they were stop.
Report Post »Affirmative Blaction
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 6:04amAlright fellow ********, lets dig as far and deep as we can to unearth the most minute link to politics, and spin this baby into a glenn beck right wing conspiracy.
Report Post »Affirmative Blaction
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 6:57amAlright I’m a little angry with theblaze right now. In my comment above you will notice ********, I did not do that, what I wrote was lib+@rds, only without any of the coding, so the blaze automatically altered what I said. Now before one goes off on a rant about “if you don’t like it then leave”, no I will not leave, I love this website, I support glenn and have great appreciation for his cause. I have been coming here since it’s launch, and have been registered, commenting, and getting my news here everyday for almost a year. But things like this really bother me. Now I know, I say some border line things that sometimes do deserve removal, but that is what our flagging system is for, if the blazers don’t like it, we will report it, and I almost rather my whole comment be removed than altered and ajusted for political correctness. But yet people like beckisnuts get a pass and have been coming here for a very, very long time spewing the same hate at us, theblaze staff, and beck himself. Even with this, and some other problems I will not abandon this site, but darnit, what the heck (worried about being censored) is going on! Is there some kind of rouge staff member doing this, did beck himself clear these kind of censorships. I have heard some great ideas from other blazers on how to improve this site, like giving us a youtube style rating system to identify trolls, spammers, and comments of no substance. Please! save theblaze! I won’t leave, but I can’t speak for othe
Report Post »whitefield
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 11:34amNot meaning to be contentious, I agree that if that is what you meant to say you should be able to say it. Perhaps, though, it doesn’t add to the discourse. If we wish to be taken seriously as a threat to the power hungry liberal elite, perhaps we shouldn’t drop to the same level as them when they call us teabaggers and worse. Just an observation.
That said, I agree, they‘ll spin it to be all our and Beck’s fault.
Report Post »drattastic
Posted on August 6, 2011 at 2:04amLoose lips foil the best laid plans it seems.
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