'Columbine'-Type Attack Plot Foiled In Pa.

cbs4denver.com ^ | Oct 11, 2007 | (CBS) News Denver

[Shots]

(CBS) PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa. A 14-year-old was arrested after reportedly planning a 'Columbine'-type event at a high school in Pennsylvania Thursday.

Police received a tip call saying the home-schooled teen was plotting an attack on Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School.

[Lucky9teen]

It makes one wonder just how involved those parents are...

Sure, there are kids that have problems, but if parents did their jobs right...these types of things could be avoided/prevented, etc.

Just my $.02

[Shots]

The real point here is the fact that he had intentions of killing others. He made that clear by trying to recruit at least one other and no doubt more could he have succeeded. Yet you think this is right??? Boy what is this world coming to???

[EndWelfareToday]

More likely this is an NEA assault on homeschoolers

So, you think the kid is in cahoots with the NEA to stage a shooting at a school in order to make home school kids look bad?

Interesting Viewpoint.

Let's be clear. That is YOUR "viewpoint." I never accused a young goat of being in "cahoots" with anyone. The NEA can and has conspired to make home schooling illegal. I see this as nothing more than an assault on those of us that love our children enough to keep them out of the reach of the Marxists concentration camps of social engineering and the brainwashing of the radical leftist perverts in the public school system.

Please refrain from trying to put words into my mouth. I say what I mean and mean what I say. I don't need you or anyone else trying to "read between the lines" of what I post.

Thx!

[EndWelfareToday]

You seem to forget he had all kinds of books on how too build bombs etc. One thing is for sure the boy he approached thought he was for real even if you think it is the police kooking for fame when in truth it is not. Shame on you

Interesting how you will believe anything anyone wearing a badge tells you. With your rational what do we need with courts? I suppose you and ol Mick Nifong are good buddies aren't you? Maybe you and ol Ronnie Earl spend your weekends out fishin eh?

Me... I like to see ALL of the evidence before I jump to conclusions. The police can blame anyone for anything they want and with people like you out there everyone they blame is guilty. It used to be that I would probably go along with you but since the mid-seventies I have watched the standards to become a law enforcement officer deteriorate and seen time and time again police officers arrested, incarcerated and/or fired for misconduct at best and/or our right breaking the law.

Remember Mark Thurman?

A table top of toys does NOT constitute an arsenal as far as I am concerned.

But then you are free to believe what you want.

[joseph20]

"Didn’t he threaten a “Columbine” attack on a school? Is that rational in your eyes?"

Assuming that he did indeed make such a threat...

I'm not inclined to jump on that bandwagon as of yet. I'm willing to let this unravel a bit further before rendering such a judgement.

It may turn out that:

1. There are no live grenades.
2. "Bomb making plans" is just the Anarchist Cookbook.
3. "Assault rifle" is just a regular 9mm Hi-Point carbine (this one's already established).
4. "Plans to carry out attack" is just the innocent rantings of a bullied kid in a personal diary or somesuch.
5. "Columbine videos" is just a bookmark in Internet Explorer to a youtube video.

I'm just saying...this story could easily be thrown out of proportion by the Nanny police and the all-too-willing Left media. They seem to jump on *any* chance to demonize firearms and to demonize typical boy behavior (making a list of enemies, tinkering with devices, etc).

[EndWelfareToday]

By the way. Owning books that you may find controversial in no way proves guilt. Maybe you should hold a book burning party and get rid of all the books you don’t like. Start with the Bible. China has!

[trumandogz]

Can you please explain how a delinquent kid with guns, hand grenades and a plan to attack a school is an assault by the NEA?

[Shots]

I thought I made it very clear it ws not about the books. here in case you missed it

The real point here is the fact that he had intentions of killing others.

[DBrow]

Shots, I agree with most of your point. The situation certainly needed attention.

But the cops are trying to make it look much much worse, and the press is going along trying to scare everybody.

Photoshoots of airsoft guns and dark references to “books about bombmaking” are intended as propaganda to scare us and make us demand or accept more government control, more oversight. Holy cats, one of the weapons has a LASER SIGHT!

If I got raided right now they’d find videos of Waco and 9-11, Davis’s book The Chemisry of Powders and Explosives, an airsoft gun or two, smokeless powder, and flammable liquids, and cookies from FreeRepublic as well as www.pipebombnews on my laptop. Plus I have lots of “survivalist” type food stored and a supply of water (earthquake country here). What can you figure out about my intentions from that? The press would have a field day with all that, I think.

I don’t think we’ll get a clear picture of what really went on and won’t know what the actual threat was, because there are too many political hot buttons to expect straight reporting from MSM.

I do apologize for my sarcastic, snarky comment. I was trying to point out that it is OK to own such books. AC and even worse (Ragnar whatisname and dope synthesis books) can be found in public libraries.

[DBrow]

You know, looking at the pic in #8 reminds me of something that happened in Hawthorne, CA some years ago.

The newspaper had a story about a gang-related raid on a home that netted cash, drug paraphernalia, and a firearm. They went in on an anonymous tip.

Next day they expanded the story to include a picture of three policemen in BP vests. On the table (the kitchen table of the raided house I think) was a small bundle of bills and a roll of aluminum foil (the heavy duty type preferred by druggies and relapsed turkey cookers). The cop in the foreground was holding a paintball gun.

The story had the added fact that the cash was “discovered stashed in a locked cash box”.

[Hacklehead]

Imagine if the cops searched your home and laid the results out on a table in front of reporters. Probably at least a half dozen rifles, an equal number of pistols (an arsenal), hunting knives, boxes of ammunition (thousands of rounds if you have a few bricks of 22 LR), bunches of gun magazines (evidence of gun nuttiness), maybe a syringe for applying oil and a power scale (drug parafinalia). If you have reloading equipment you are manufacturing ammunition. A few pounds of gun powder = bomb making equipment. It’s easy for them to make virtually anyone look like a dangerous lunatic.

[EndWelfareToday]

The real point here is the fact that he had intentions of killing others.

So you are a member of the thought police now? How in the **** do you know what he was "thinking?" All we've heard so far is the charges being brought by a police department acting supposedly and solely on the accusations of another child. That my friend is called, "HEARSAY." If owning books is a sign of a person's intent then I venture to say that all educated people with extensive libraries are in some serious trouble if people like you are allowed to claim that you know what is on their mind based upon the books that are on their shelves. As I said, start a book burning party and start with the Bible. After all those of us that read it are evil, murderous, life loving haters of all that is leftist.

[EndWelfareToday]

Can you please explain how a delinquent kid with guns, hand grenades and a plan to attack a school is an assault by the NEA?

Maybe you should read the article before trying to pin me down. I believe in having all the evidence as I believe you should as well. That said, if you go back and read the article the comment, "Police received a tip call saying the home-schooled teen was plotting an att..."

That was a shot across the bow of all home schoolers that liberals and moderates are coming after us. I realize that it's hard for some of people to follow along so I hope you appreciate the moment I've taken to try to enlighten those that are ignorant of what it is to be a Conservative that loves his/her children enough to keep them away from the worthless scumbags working in the public schools to indoctrinate young children into the unholy life of being a friggin, uneducated communist.

What's more, they had to used a child that was as recently as a year ago enrolled in the public school he is alleged to want to attack. You ask me that alone is an incredible indictment of the public school system and NOT home-schooling.

And you may wish to pay attention. Almost all the "weapons" the police paraded for those in the chicken-little crowd are in fact nothing more than toys.

[trumandogz]

I was not aware that it was common practice for a home school to have a live hand grenade in the classroom.

[pray4liberty]

I agree with your posts. This is just zero tolerance hysteria.

This boy needs treatment to repair all the psychological damage he sustained attending the public school.

A 9mm rifle without ammo is harmless, and toy guns even more so. Punishing him is not going to help at all.

I think the focus should be more on the bullying that helped to create this extreme situation. If the bullies were the school athletes and other 'favorites', this boy knew he'd not be getting any justice.

Now the system is going to come after him and his parents. Maybe she got the gun for him because some of those bullies were still coming around, threatening and harassing them. Call the police? If the bullies are favorites, the police will do nothing. That's not something that's going to be publicized. If this boy is guilty, his bullies should likewise be charged with terroristic threatening.

Cho, the Virginia Tech killer, was unmercifully bullied and he unfortunately took "justice" into his own hands. If a school cannot or will not provide a safe environment for all their students, parents need to demand a "Bully Voucher" and take it out of the school's financial butt to pay to educate their child elsewhere or pay them to homeschool.

Let's see how quick the bullying would stop the instant it gets out that the school will lose money and get a black mark on their No Child Left Behind report card.

[Texas Songwriter]

BB guns? All of this over a BB gun. I was given a Winchester 243 for deer hunting when I was 14. One of the greatest Christmas presents I ever received. All of those ‘replicas’ are BB guns?

[EndWelfareToday]

I was not aware that it was common practice for a home school to have a live hand grenade in the classroom.

Sorry.

I didn't mean to type so fast.

[joseph20]

"I was not aware that it was common practice for a home school to have a live hand grenade in the classroom."

It's probably an airsoft grenade.

[donnab]

This school is my alma mater...
So I know quite a bit about the area.
And we have been getting info all day on this. Most of the parents picked the kids up at school. School will resume tomorrow.
So far from what we have been told the mother bought the teen a 9mm. It was in his possession. Most of his guns are paint ball guns but there was a grenade that was ready to go. Yes he was home schooled and believe me whoever said it was an assault on home schooling cant be more wrong. So lets not let misinformation get in the way. He was home schooled because he had been bullied is all we know. But we respect home schooling and I have found the schools around here pretty supportive with it.
The kid wanted a friend of his to help him with his plan. The teen he asked told his father and the father went to the police. This kid and family need help. Personally I am saying some prayers for them and thanking God as well that it was caught before someone got hurt.

[Tired of Taxes]

You're right that the article was written in a biased, anti-homeschooling way. (My family lives near this town, and they say homeschooling is being mentioned at the top of all the news reports on this story.)

Mentioning homeschooling at the top is biased because it doesn't explain why he was so angry at the school. Here's how it should've been written:

Police received a tip call saying the home-schooled teen former student was plotting an attack on Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School. The teen reportedly was bullied in school, and he was removed from the school by his parents to homeschool 18 months ago.

It's still appropriate to mention homeschooling because it tells us what he's been doing since leaving school. But, the story makes more sense when the reader knows at the top that this is a former student.