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Authorities avoided a potential shootout at a college in Lee County, Florida, after arresting two students who allegedly planned a bombing.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marcelo said the 13 and 14-year-old boys were charged with conspiracy to commit a mass shooting after a Sheriff’s Department investigation this week found they were developing a plan and “thoroughly investigated” the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, when two students killed 12 others and a teacher.
“It could have turned into a disaster. We are a second from a Columbine here,” Marcelo said at a press conference on Thursday.
A teacher at Harns Marsh Middle School in Lehigh Acres, just east of Fort Myers, alerted administrators and the school’s resources manager on Wednesday after students warned that a grade eight student could carry a gun in their backpack, officials said. Students were removed from the classroom and an administrative search uncovered a map of the school with markings indicating the location of indoor cameras, but did not reveal a gun, said M Marcelo.
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Detectives identified another student who was allegedly involved. Investigators found weapons at the boys’ home, including a gun and knives, and evidence that they were trying to learn how to make homemade bombs and buy weapons on the black market, authorities said.
“In this case, I am sure that my team of dedicated assistants and detectives acted quickly, investigated thoroughly and prevented the commission of a very violent and dangerous act,” Marcelo said.
“It could have been the next Parkland massacre,” he added, referring to the shooting of 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School over 120 miles away in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people. “But we stopped them in the planning stages.”
The adolescents both meet the assessment criteria at a mental health facility, Marcelo said. The sheriff’s department already knew the boys, he said, and had answered calls to their homes almost 80 times in total.
At the press conference Thursday, Lee County Superintendent Ken Savage thanked students, educators, school staff and the resource manager for responding quickly to the potential threat. A spokesperson for the school district declined to comment further on Friday.
“All of the threat assessment and emergency response training made a difference in the outcome of this incident,” said Dr. Savage.
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