LANCASTER, Calif. - Two teenagers were in custody for allegedly plotting to carry out a Columbine-like massacre at their former high school next Valentine's Day, authorities said. The former Quartz Hill High students, whose names were not released, were arrested Thursday after searches of their homes turned up knives, ammunition, a gas mask and bomb-making instructions downloaded from the Internet, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. They were being held at the Sylmar Juvenile Detention Center for investigation of making terrorist threats, Brown said. "I've been working with schools for eight years, and we have hoaxes all the time, but this is the first time that I thought, 'Oops, this one could really happen,'" sheriff's Sgt. Darrel Brown said Friday. "You could see they were preparing meticulously, taking things step by step." The boys, ages 17 and 15, had been transferred from Quartz Hill to other schools for disciplinary reasons, authorities said. Brown said an investigation began Wednesday when a student contacted the school's vice principal and said the former classmates were planning a "Columbine-style assault" on the campus. The student said she had learned about it second-hand. The boys told investigators that they planned to kill Quartz Hill students who had made fun of them, using guns and homemade explosives, then commit suicide, Brown said. On Friday, deputies at the sheriff's station in Lancaster displayed a page from the 15-year-old's notebook with the scrawled message: "When I'm God, everyone dies." The notebook was accompanied by a three-ring binder with pictures of Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and murderer Charles Manson. Deputies said they found a black trench coat at one boy's home, possibly to be used in imitation of the similarly-dressed Columbine killers, and the 15-year-old boy had carved the word "hate" into his forearm, authorities alleged.
Are you sure? The report says they were ratted out. I cannot see (being generous, perhaps) see how the posession of a gas mask, knives ammunition and a black coat can be incriminating, even if circumstantial. Here's an example of guilt by download. I want to know how to make black powder so I am not held hostage by the manufacturers and can hunt with primitive arms, so I am a bomb maker? Even if I have directions to make explosives to blast a stubbon stump in my back forty, I'm a terrorist? This gives me gas. RH has knives coming out her ears, so she is contemplating a dustup on a subway. Valk, CJ (and others) are manufacturers of knives that can be used ito commit mayhem, so they are plotting to arm a few people to take over a rail shipment of nuclear materials. ALL of us have kitchen knives so we are conspiring with them. I have a revolver, so I'm contemplating robbing a bank, simply because I wrote revolver and bank in the same thread. Ab-fucking-surd. And, I suppose, if this thread is abstracted by the NSA, we are all doomed to getting rounded up and put away without a lot of fussing. I hope the prosceution has more to go on than that. However, if true, those kids need isolation from society, permanently. Sociopaths are dangerous if allowed to live. Yup, I jumped to the same obvious conclusion the article wants.
why did they have to add that it was downloaded from the internet? Why not just say they had bomb plans? They want every other kid to go downloading? smells bad to me.
Agreed ghrit & Quig. All of our freedoms come with the potential of being used by those with harmful intent but the freedom itself cannot be abridged. Sadly, there are plenty of people who would do so to avoid situations such as this.
MILK AND COOKIES ALL AROUND!! You are such nice, well behaved people, the dot gov will reward you with protection and pablum. Just line up over there, pass thru the metal detectors and get your issue of wooden spoon and bowl of you-know-what on a shingle. Don't forget to turn in the spoon when you have finished your rations. Stepford wives, anyone? Citizen, your papers --- Good grief (in lieu of something a bit less PC)
