Teen Faces Terrorism Charges After Kidnapping Classmate

April 23, 2008 — -- Brent Clark is fighting for his future, after what he said was a rash act in reaction to incessant bullying he suffered at his middle school.

The 15-year-old from Mesa, Ariz., faces charges of terrorism, kidnapping and aggravated assault after, by his own admission, he followed a female classmate home from school March 22, 2007, and held her hostage at knife point.

That was not the way it was supposed to happen. At the time, the then-14-year-old Powell Junior High School student was in seventh grade and claimed he was being bullied by one of his classmates.

"It was torment. It basically just made me feel like — made me feel very angry," said Clark, who had been suspended for disciplinary problems before the incident last year.

The teen said his classmate taunted him endlessly at school. It was so bad, he said, that he reported it to a teacher, though school officials said they have no record of such a report.

Finally, after nine months of bullying, the self-described "good" kid and top-ranked Boy Scout said he simply snapped. He plotted his revenge.

"I grabbed a knife and I was gonna take him. I was gonna stab him," Clark said.

But on that spring day, he was unable to find the student he wanted to harm and he said his pent-up anger boiled over. So instead, he followed a 14-year-old girl from his Spanish class to an apartment complex, where he pulled her behind a wall and held a four-inch switchblade to her throat, according to police.

He told the girl that if she didn't do what he said, he'd kill her, police said.

Clark does not dispute the police account. "I grabbed her, put a knife to her throat. And upon that, a couple seconds, or maybe even a minute later, I let her go and ran home," Clark said.

But Clark said he "probably" didn't mean to hurt the teen. "I wasn't thinking," he said.

Whether he meant to hurt her or not, the girl told police and school officials what happened. The next day, his parents were notified and they found him at home, sitting on the couch in front of the television set wearing camouflage pants and military boots, with a backpack at his feet.