At the risk of understatement, I don’t understand teenagers. Granted I’m in my early forties, but I feel as a teen forty year-olds understood me better than I do this lot. Between their Internet speak, and need to kill their classmates I’ll confess to feeling out of the loop. I know plenty of people my age that enjoy sitting down with their gaming consoles in order to kill a prostitute or six in the Grand Theft Auto series, but I find it rarely translates into massacre and mayhem.
Minnesota school attack: The charges
Police in Waseca, Minnesota on Tuesday, arrested a yet unnamed teen with four counts of attempted first degree-murder, six counts of possessing explosive or incendiary devices and two counts of criminal damage to property. Somewhat strangely, the seventeen year old was charged in juvenile court with police claiming that the teen intended to kill “as many students as he could” at his junior and senior high school.
While his lawyers could argue that this was just a “fantasy” that doesn’t quite work given what the kid was found in possession of when police responded to a call that there was a suspicious person at a storage facility.
Capt. Kris Markeson told reporters that the police department believes that the teen was acting alone and that he would have launched the attack in mere weeks had he not been arrested and charged. Markeson also stated that he was quite disturbed by the amount of guns and bomb building material the teen had stockpiled. He refused to comment on whether specific students were targeted but the attempted murder charges suggest that at least four people were indeed singled-out.
“This case is a classic example of citizens doing the right thing in calling the police when things seem out of place. By doing the right thing, (an) unimaginable tragedy has been prevented,” Markeson said.
School Superintendent Thomas Lee said the 11th-grader was known to school officials but they had no major issues with him. He said teachers tried to reach out to him, but he was shy. Apparently, it’s always the shy ones.
“We have escaped what could have been a horrific experience,” Lee said.
Minnesota school attack: The plan
In late March, police opened an investigation after three “small” explosive devices were found at an elementary school playground in Waseca, Minnesota about 80 miles south of the state capital. Allegedly, the teen admitted to setting off the bombs there.
Based on a notebook recovered by police, The Free Press of Mankato reported that the teen intended to kill his parents and sister, start a fire in a field to distract first-responders, then set off pressure-cooker explosives like those used in the Boston Marathon bombing in his school’s cafeteria.
The notebook suggest that next he intended to gun down students and throw Molotov cocktails, kill a school liason officer, and then die at the hands of a SWAT team.
Apparently, the teen idolized the Columbine shooters whose names I won’t repeat here do to their cowardice and the strife they caused.
After the police found the teen in the storage unit with bomb materials, he allegedly broke into an odd Rumpelstiltskin-like character telling police that he would tell them what he was doing if they could guess. Apparently, one officer guessed that he was making bombs and the youth answered “Yes” and agreed to speak with officers after telling them that he would have shot them had he brought a gun with him to the storage unit.
According to KARE-TV, police recovered seven firearms with ammunition and three functional bombs from the teen’s home along with a ski mask and black clothing after the kid supplied the key to his gun safe. While apparently a deluded murderous scumbag, he does seem to have manners. A small measure of good parenting in the face of letting their child have a frickin’ gun safe and bombs in his room.
The child is presently awaiting his court date on May 12th after appearing in court today in a juvenile detention center in Red Wing, Minn.
