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Planned school shooting


Kimberly Rubio

Assistant editor

Two local teenagers, who on April 25 were detained for conspiracy to commit murder, allegedly planned to detonate improvised explosive devices before conducting a mass school shooting at Morales Junior High.

According to the Uvalde Police Department, the pair initially decided to execute their plan on April 20, 2022. That date represents the duos senior year of high school and the 23rd anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting.

Now, police say, one student had convinced the other to move up the attack to this school year. According to the police department, the pair planned to steal weapons from a neighbor’s home.

The two teens, ages 13 and 14, had allegedly developed a list ranking students by order of priority. After that, they allegedly planned to kill as many students as possible before committing suicide. The 14-year-old student attended Morales Junior High School, while the 13-year-old was a former student of the campus.

According to the Uvalde Police Department, the pair was infatuated with the Columbine High School shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, often referring to themselves using the shooter’s names.

“Investigators believe the two were discussing and planning an attack on the Uvalde High School during their senior year, on the anniversary of the Columbine shooting,” read a press release from the police department. “Recently, however, one of the students began to convince the other that they needed to move the attack up to this year.”

The department was made aware of the situation on April 19, after one of the students made a report to campus officials. The department requested the assistance of the Texas Rangers. On April 25, the pair were detained and taken to a juvenile detention center in Del Rio.

“One of the students had numerous writings and drawings which depicted weapons capable of causing mass destruction,” the release stated. “He wrote about being “God-like” and killing police and other persons. He had an academic analysis of one of the Columbine shooter’s journal.”

According to the police department, the pair had conducted internet searches related to tactics used by the Columbine shooters and had read about how to make improvised explosive devices as recently as three weeks prior to their arrests.

“It appears the two were planning on detonating the IEDs at the start of the mass casualty event. After the IEDs, they would begin killing students from a list they developed where they had ranked student victims by priority. After that, they were going to kill as many students as possible before taking their own lives,” the statement read.

According to the department, Texas Ranger Ryan Kindell will continue collecting and analyzing additional evidence, including the students school-issued iPads in which there are conversations between the suspects planning out the details of the attack.

For more information please see Thursday’s paper.

 

 

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