Four Teenagers Arrested in "Highly Detailed" Plot to Shoot Up Their High School
Four Northern California teenagers were arrested last week and jailed in a juvenile detention center after their classmates allegedly overheard them plotting a “highly detailed” mass murder at their high school.
Police were called to Summerville High School in Tuolumne County last Wednesday, after a group of students told a teacher they’d overheard the teens discussing plans to perpetuate a mass shooting.
Three of the four students were pulled out of class and arrested the same day, and a fourth was reportedly taken into custody on Friday.
Police say a search of the teens’ lockers and homes revealed “evidence verifying a plot to shoot staff and students at Summerville High School” and at least some of the teens also confessed. The details, via the New York Times:
Investigators have found no clear motive for the planned attack, Sheriff Mele said, but he said that “the suspects’ plans were very detailed in nature and included names of would-be victims, locations and methods in which the plan was to be carried out.” The students planned to open fire during an event at school, he said, and “were in the process of trying to obtain these weapons.”
All four students are currently being held on charges of conspiracy to commit an assault with deadly weapons.
“(They were) pretty dog-gone close. (Close) enough to keep me up last night, to keep my detectives and lieutenants up last night. There was an event that would be coming up that they specifically talked about,” Tuolumne County Sheriff Jim Mele told the Modesto Bee. “To talk about specifically what, I don’t want to, but enough to move forward ... that we took four children away from their homes in order to protect other children.”
