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Two college students in Florida were arrested for allegedly plotting to commit a shootout inspired by the Columbine massacre, in which two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher in Colorado in 1999.
“We were a second from Columbine here,” said the local sheriff.
The 13 and 14-year-old boys were being held in a juvenile detention center for conspiring to carry out a mass shooting.
The boys are both at eighth-grade Harns Marsh Middle School in Lee County, two hours from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where a student killed 17 people in 2018.
The boys were arrested after students alerted a teacher that one of them may have carried a gun in his backpack.
The teacher warned the administrators, who carried out a search. No guns were found, but the search revealed a map of the school with markings indicating the location of indoor cameras, Sheriff Carmine Marcelo told reporters on Thursday.
An investigation by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Sheriff’s Department of Youth Services revealed that the boys were “involved in a conspiracy to carry out a school shooting.”
Marcelo said the couple are “thoroughly studying” the Columbine shooting.
Investigators found “disturbing evidence” at the boys’ home, including knives and a gun. They also found evidence that the boys were trying to learn how to buy guns on the black market and how to make homemade bombs.
Marcelo said he was “certain that my team of dedicated assistants and detectives acted quickly, investigated thoroughly and prevented the commission of a very violent and dangerous act.”
He also said: “It could have been the next Parkland massacre, but we stopped them at the planning stage.”
According to Marcelo, the two students are well known to the authorities, with the deputies having visited their homes almost 80 times in total. Both boys met assessment criteria at a mental health facility and were assessed prior to being detained.
“I applaud the students who have stepped forward to report the threat and the swift staff action,” said Alex Dworzanski, Principal of Harns Marsh College.
“The safety of our students and staff is at the heart of our business. “
Mass shootings are generally defined as incidents in which at least four people are shot or killed, not counting the person with the weapon.
According to data from the Gun Violence Archives, mass shootings have increased in the United States since 2017. The nonprofit, which began collecting data in 2014, said 2020 saw the largest increase in mass shootings with 611, after 417 the previous year.
Records of gun violence counted nearly 500 mass shootings in 2021.
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