Parkland helped to sound the alarm on Vermont's teen school shooting plan: NPR

It was sunny and cold on February 13, 2018, when 18-year-old Jack Sawyer left Dick's Sporting Goods store in Rutland, Vt., With a brand new shotgun and four rounds of ammunition.

The next day, Valentine's Day, Sawyer pulled out his new gun to train the target.

At about the same time, about 1500 miles from Parkland, Florida, a 19-year-old boy killed and killed 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Shortly after, Vermont learned that it might have avoided a similar massacre. State police announced that they had arrested Sawyer after he allegedly threatened to cause numerous casualties in his former high school in Fair Haven, a small town located near the border with New York.

Police said Sawyer had described his plans in detail: he had told them that he was reading books on the 1999 Columbine shoot and that he had ties to both shooters. Sawyer said that he returned to Vermont to run a similar plan at the High Haven Union High School.

He also let the police search his car, where she found the shotgun and ammunition that he had legally bought and a newspaper titled "The Journal of an Active Shooter".

But Fair Haven Union High School did not join Marjory Douglas Stoneman, Santa Fe, Columbine or Virginia Tech.

In many ways, the system worked: someone saw something, then said something, and the police made an arrest. But what will happen next would create a fundamental tension at the heart of our criminal justice system: when would a thought – or plan – become a crime?

"I know I have to tell someone right away."

Police said she had begun to watch Sawyer after receiving a tip from Jennifer Mortenson on Feb. 14. His daughter was a few years ahead of Sawyer at Fair Haven Union, and Mortenson knew that Sawyer had already threatened high school. She became worried when a friend of her daughter learned that Sawyer had bought a gun. Then Parkland arrived and Mortenson decided to alert the police.

The officers responded, but after questioning Sawyer, they determined that they had no reason to stop him.

Then Sawyer's friend Angela McDevitt spoke.

A few days before Parkland, Sawyer and McDevitt were chatting on Facebook Messenger. According to a police report, Sawyer reportedly told McDevitt, "Just a few days ago, I was still plotting to shoot at my old high school."

McDevitt was shocked and scared – she did not know what to do. Then she heard about Parkland and told him about it.

Sawy's response stunned her: "It's fantastic," he wrote. "100% support it."

"I remember looking at my phone, just like:" Oh my God. "I was so shocked," says McDevitt. "I was just like:" You can not say that, people are dead. "And that's when I said to myself," I know that I have to tell someone immediately "."

The next morning, February 15, McDevitt showed the messages to authorities close to her home in northern New York State. In the early afternoon, the Vermont state police had arrested Sawyer.

At the police station, Sawyer was placed in a small room and interrogated by two police detectives from the state of Vermont. The detectives videotaped their conversation and the recording was included in the court documents. This shows the police telling Sawyer that his mother and father are waiting outside. At 18, he prefers to talk to the police without his parents.

Sawyer reveals that he plans for several hours to attack his old school and wants to set a new record: the highest number of deaths for a school shooter – more than 32 people.

He says that he would kill himself when he was done: "If I ever die, I would like it to be like that."

And he says that his arrest would only delay his plan.

Sawyer also reveals that he was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and that he had been treated at a therapeutic boarding school in Maine. At the time, the detectives did not know that this was only part of Sawyer's long mental health history.

"The overwhelming experience" of getting a treatment

Defenders often bristle when people associate mental health with discussions about mass shooters. They argue that people with severe mental illness are far more likely to be abused than their perpetrators.

But when you talk to Sawyer's family and his close friends, they talk about his mental illness many times.

His former classmates at Fair Haven Union say that in the beginning, Sawyer was funny and kind, even though he was a little shy and indifferent. In grade 10, he became more distant and published disturbing posts on Facebook. He wrote an article about Columbine and brought a book about shooting at school.

In the spring of 2016, school staff, counselors and law enforcement began working with Sawyer's family to create a plan. They wanted to keep Sawyer safe and make sure he was not hurting anyone.

But the same day, Sawyer had to meet the school director to discuss this plan, he gave up. Shortly after, a friend told Sawyer's mother, Lyn Wolk, that her son had suicidal thoughts.

"It's a very difficult experience to understand," Wolk said in an interview with his house in July 2018.

She is tense, sitting in her office. It is clearly difficult to talk about this and she chooses her words carefully.

Wolk explains that finding help for his son has not been easy, especially in a small rural state like Vermont. Friends would recommend therapists in the area, but none of them were taking new patients. There is also a shortage of psychiatrists in the state, especially those who see children. It was therefore difficult to determine the drugs of his son.

"We knew what he needed, we knew what would attract him," recalls Wolk. "But we knew that there was nothing like it in our area."

"Huge charges!"

In February 2018, Rose Kennedy, Rutland County lawyer, indicted Sawyer for four crimes: two counts of attempted murder and one count of attempted first degree murder and aggravated assault with a weapon deadly.

These are among the most serious charges in the Vermont Penal Code. A qualified murder attempt carries the same penalty as a murder charge: a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Kennedy requested that Sawyer be kept on bail and a lower court accepted.

In Fair Haven, where Sawyer was supposed to carry out his attack, many people said it would put them at risk.

But Sawyer's public defender, Kelly Green, felt that the state's attorney had gone too far.

"Huge, huge loads!" Green said, shaking his head. "Not only because the charges were so serious, but because the facts were not there, the facts did not support the charges." Jack did not commit these crimes. "

She thinks there was a better option – the civil commitment. It meant getting a court order to place Sawyer in a mental hospital where he could get help.

The US state attorney, Kennedy, said she was not looking for a civil commitment because she did not have access to Sawyer's mental health records and that nothing guaranteed that the court would respond to his request. And more importantly, says Kennedy, she thought Sawyer had attempted murder – that his plans and preparations deserved the accusation.

Nevertheless, legal experts in Vermont quickly began to debate whether the charges went too far – and whether the state was slipping down a slippery slope. They asked thorny questions like:

Should someone be allowed to think: "I want to shoot down my old school"?

Or write it in a newspaper?

Or do that, then buy a gun?

In other words, did Sawyer even break the law?

Jared Carter, an assistant professor at Vermont Law School, says no – at least not according to the law as it was written when Sawyer was arrested.

He cites a landmark case from 1906 concerning a Vermont prisoner convicted of attempted escape. The prisoner appealed to the Supreme Court of Vermont, which overturned the conviction.

"Many people might say," Well, wait a minute. The guy was picking up hacksaw blades to get out of jail. Why is not that enough? "Carter explains. "And I think the reason is that he may have had this design, he could have had that idea, he could have bought blades, but he had not actually completed no matter what. And in this country, in general, we criminalize acts – not thoughts. "

Sawyer's defense lawyers have presented a similar case. They argued that Sawyer had in fact not attempted any of the crimes with which he was charged and that he could not therefore be detained without bail. And as with the Vermont prisoner, their case was referred to the state Supreme Court.

In early April 2018, the judges heard arguments from both sides: Attorney Kennedy said that, as Sawyer had provided a lot of details about his intention to murder students, his return to Vermont, Maine, where he was living , had in fact started the assassination.

"Once that happens, is it important what does it do after that?" Judge Harold Eaton asked during the proceedings. He could say: "You know, I've changed my mind," throws his gun, goes back to Maine, he's still guilty?

Kennedy said yes, according to Vermont case law, he would be guilty.

Sawyer's defense lawyer disagrees and points out that Sawyer was arrested almost a month before the date he chose for his attack.

The judges sided with Sawyer. They said that he was perhaps prepared to commit a crime, but that it was not the same as attempting a crime and that it meant that he could be released. under caution.

The decision forced Kennedy to dismiss the four crime charges. She had added two offenses to keep the Sawyer case in court, but they were much less serious: at the time, they spent no more than three years in prison, combined.

Sawyer's family quickly released a $ 10,000 bond. At the end of April 2018, the 18-year-old left the prison. He agreed to go to a Vermont mental hospital and the court ordered him to stay away from Fair Haven Union High School and McDevitt, his friend who alerted the police.

Shouting fire in a crowded theater

Kennedy says she respects the decision of the Supreme Court, but she wonders what will happen when the next Jack Sawyer arrives.

"There is still a chasm in the Vermont case law," she says. "There must be a place where law enforcement forces must be able to take action to stop a horrific crime much earlier in this continuum than when someone actually comes forward to commit the act."

At the very bottom of the Supreme Court of Vermont decision, the judges state that they interpret only the laws as they are written; it is up to lawmakers to change the laws on Vermont attempts.

Almost immediately, state legislators took the floor. About three months after Sawyer's arrest, the Legislature passed a new law on "domestic terrorism".

Some states have been able to lay charges against teenagers who have threatened to resort to violence by accusing them of terrorist threats – akin to loud cries of fire in a crowded theater.

Marsha Levick, head of law at the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, explains that even with these laws, it's hard to know when a threat is real.

"As a country, we have been fighting different state laws, trying to define the permissible limits of how we can punish terrorist threats."

"You no longer take a threat lightly"

In August 2018, Sawyer's lawyers were able to move his adult criminal court record to a family court, which would keep him confidential and offer more treatment options.

In March 2019, more than a year after Sawyer's arrest, his case was resolved. The 19-year-old was tried as a juvenile delinquent for carrying a dangerous weapon, a crime.

Normally, we would not know it – the family's business is not made public. But lawyers on both sides, as well as Sawyer's family, felt that it was important to inform the community of his fate, and the judge agreed.

Wolk, Sawyer's mother, said in an email that her son had been transferred in late April to a secure residential treatment center located outside of Vermont. He will remain under the supervision of the Department of Corrections and the Vermont Department of Children and Family until his 22nd birthday. According to the prosecutor's office, he is not allowed to possess firearms.

Wolk said that last year had been heartbreaking for her family, but she felt that her son's case had resulted in positive developments in Vermont – like the new national terrorism law, the news gun control laws and the increase in state funding for school safety. And she attended broader discussions on issues such as mental health, diversity, and bullying at school.

Wolk says that she is grateful for the outcome of her son's case; it is that he receives "an additional treatment for mental health focused on a healthy future, not on the mistakes of the past".

But she also knows that her story will not go away.

In Fair Haven, many members of the community remain torn apart. Some think that the courts were wrong; most want Sawyer to get help. But almost everyone is eager to leave this story behind.

And it was not easy. Some students and five staff left Fair Haven Union because of what happened.

Julia Adams, a social science teacher, stayed. But she says she's still angry and she's worried that Sawyer will someday carry out his threat.

"You do not threaten my kids in my class or my colleagues," says Adams.

"Who knows if he will get the help he needs or if something will ever change with him … You do not take a threat lightly."

She says that there is not really any fence – she is just trying to go ahead.

This story was adapted from Vermont Public Radio jolted, a podcast about a shootout at a school that did not happen.

Nicole Cohen edited this story for broadcast and for the web.