Mom Charged in Planned ‘Columbine-Style’ School Attack

I hope this kid gets either the psychological help he needs, or he gets charged as an adult. I’m an alumn of this high school and I currently still have friends and a sibling there. There are also teachers I loved teaching there. That could’ve been any one of them on the other end of those guns.

Crazy mother = very crazy, unstable son. What a tragedy for all concerned and how sad when the parent is the one responsible for their child’s crimes. Mother needs to go to prison, son needs to be committed to a mental institution.

Sad situation all around. Any anger I felt at the Mom for being so stupid as to give a disturbed child guns seems over-weighted by looking at her picture. She appears none too sharp herself and has the appearance of a mother overwhelmed, someone who tried to keep a son happy whose behavior she could not control. Not only did she make foolish choices but ones that could have resulted in the death of several innocent children.

so…. this guy wears a moo-moo?

What is the matter with today’s parents! don’t they see what is goning on in this world, and still she goes out there and buys this kid guns, swords, ect., to shoot and kill people? I think she should get years in prison along with her husband and kid. They are all wackos.

I hope they (the court system) make this mother very famous and that she never will see the light of day. Any Book and Movie rights should go to the child for his care, and a reward to the youth who came forward.

Let’s put the kid in supervised treatment and therapy until he’s 25. Her and her husband’s parental rights should be terminated and the woman ought to go to prison for the next 30 years or so. Enough of this idiocy!

Hey, hey, NRA!
Stand up for his rights today!
Isn’t EVERY American citizen endowed by their Creator with the right to own enough firepower to supply a small army????
Where are you guys??? What? Finally found one gun-looney you CAN’T defend??

I agree that this kid needs some very intensive and serious psycological help along with being banned from possessing any types of weapons for a very, very long period of time. The mother is grossly negligent in her parenting, moral guidance and supplying this kid with weapons as she did. Her ex-husband is a convicted felon, did she learn nothing in life? She was raising another felon here.

This is why “McGillicuddy”-type people are no good. Because they are dumb and messed up. :)

Sounds like the mother and son both need quite a bit of psychiatric help.

mother that willing to buy guns for a 14 yrs old son must be in a mental state condition as well….

Just remember this next time you hear a gun nut insisting that everyone should be able to have unfettered access to sophisticated weaponry, without a background check.
Hunting is one thing, or even a concealed weapon for defense (though I myself do not have one). But multiple guns, semiautomatics, laser scopes, etc. Idiocy.

They should kill this fat little pig

“If teens want to prove themselves…go to college, get yourself a well paid career and come the reunion showing off while the bullies are still stuck in the same place. Now, that I is what i call revenge.”
Posted by: Lettie | Oct 12, 2007 1:35:08 PM
According to the article this kid was “the bully” and this is why he was kicked out of the school and being home schooled.
I’m not making excuses for the kid, he and his mother deserve whatever they have coming but if the kid was overwheight and not too bright (his poor spelling in his note is a good indication he wasn’t) then I’m certain he was constantly picked on by his fellow students adding to his lack of self esteem and many other issues he has and needs professional help for and I hope he gets it soon.
Also, if you look at the mother it’s obvious she’s not the most outstanding role model for building self-esteem in her son, that and I wonder what subjects she was home teaching her son at home…”bomb making 101″ and “when it’s ok to kill your former classmates and teachers.”
Just sayin…

I think this is very sad. I can not believe a parent would supply a child with such violent things and know about what he plans to do with them. Obviously they are not a very stable family and both of them need help. Maybe the mother was not raised right…
I think that both the mother and sons deserve the punishment that is given and learn something from it.

The authorities of the school and the parents of said bullies ought to go to prison for allowing the bullying. These people here are victims.

Don’t you people understand that the name calling that your doing on this site is exactly why this boy is in this mess now? Your still bullying him!!! I’m not making excuses for his or his parents behavior, however, obviously this kid got pushed over the edge of reason and what your doing is how it happened. I was bullied as a kid but my mom taught me how to stand up for myself-this kid didn’t have that type of parenting. He needs to be held accountable for his actions, but so do his parents and possibly the school district-especially if they knew about the bullying.

This a very sad story. The fact that anyone can go out and buy enough firepower to start a small war needs addressing.
The right to bear arms was drafted at a time when the Musket was seen as the height of sophistication firing at it’s best about three rounds per minute.
However misguided a kid gets access to a weapon of firing 200 rounds per minute. That is just nuts.

You are starting to combine two incidents. The young man that shot himself after taking two handguns to school happened in Ohio. This was stopped before it actually happened and the student was arrested.
I am disheartened with this incident as anyone else but calling them names is the same sort of behavior that probably contributes to the behavior of these young men.
It is sad that, for whatever reason it was done, the mother did not use reason in obtaining and giving these guns to her son. And, just as an SUV doesn’t decide itself to overturn or do stupid acts, it is the driver behind the wheel that is the cause; the gun doesn’t just automatically jump into the hands of a person and begin firing of its own accord.

This is my daughter’s school. I am so very thankful that the suspect tried to recruit another student to ‘assist’ him in carrying out his planned attack. If he had not, we would have learned about this story after it was too late. It frightens me to think that my daughter and countless others could have been innocent victims in all this. Between the firearms and grenades he had, this could have been as bad (if not worse) than Columbine. It’s a scary world we live in.

I agree with everyone that the mother & the son are to blamed but everyone is
overlooking how all this started. How about making ‘bullying’ a crime, too.
The boy may just be reacting to the past when he was being bullied & now wants to get even. BULLYING SHOULD ALSO BE TREATED AS A CRIME.

Of every last poster here. Have any of you even READ the news piece in question? There was only ONE FIREARM, a 9mm carbine. All the rest were AIRSOFT. Replicas that fire plastic BBs. They don’t even hit hard enough to break the skin. So, reign in your righteous indignation and think logically for a change. One gun, some home made bombs. Laws broken? Undoubtedly. Illegal transfer of firearms? Maybe. Columbine in the offing? get real. The kid didn’t even have any ammo. This is a prosecutor grandstanding, and a neighbor kid and dad out to look like heroes. Oh well, maybe this boy will get the attention and help he needs.

Some of you are confusing your stories- the boy in this story did not get a chance to attack the school as he was arrested beforehand. You’re confusing it with the school shooting in Ohio- that student injured several people and then killed himself.

Sorry Melba, wrong story … this boy is still very much alive. This planned attack was prevented by concerned “friend” and his father. They are heroes in my book. You are likely confusing this story with the one out of Ohio.
As for the mother – shame on her. As an adult, she should know better. I hope she doesn’t see the light of day for a long, long time. And as for the boy, he should do time but I also hope he gets the help he needs, psychologically.

I really hope that American people see ‘right to bear arms’ notion is destroying us.

Is this mother informed the school’s principal about the bullying? There is a lot of kids killing themselves because they can take the bullying and the school’s principals doesn’t do anything about it. Me as a principal I will press charges against any bully and send his/hers bad self to jail to see if after meeting with Big Bobba will change their behavoir. Big to fight? Big to do time in jail. We are raising nothing but ignorant, no moral values kids. If I’m the parent of my bullied kid, I will sue the principal and press criminal charges on those punks kids. They need a good weeping!!!
Don’t blame the bullied kid. Maybe he/she sees no help coming and think that is the only answer.

OK,
Where do I start.. At the risk of sounding redneckish, I am not a qualified psychologist nor a family therapist. However, there are certain qualities and physical characteristics that are congruent and directly attributable to the behaviour of the mother and child in this case. Additionally, stereotypic and slanderization is expected in any responses to this post.
I will boil it down to a simple rue… EDUCATION, and family values, of which obviously neither the parent or child had any (very unfortunate) kids tend to mimic what the see and what thier elders and peers do and say ( not to mention beliefs and actions).
PARENTS.. your kids will become YOU.. or worse unless they have educated and meaningfull influences in thier life.
Can you fault the mother YES…. and NO she obviously has has no preemptiveness in her life to educate her (and her son) that semi-automatic weapons are not appropriate for those under 21 or those deficient of professional and ethical training. Additionally, nor was there any clear indication that the social systems around this individual had a grasp that clearly derived that severe social issues were buried in this young lad.
All of these events that have truncated this blog mortally depress me. Bottom line… we all are responsible for our actions and those with whom we educate, do wrong pay the price, imparte knowlege to someone who acts on your decisions and actions, guess what, you! should suffer the obvious consequence’s of your wykehamist.
This truly saddens me as a parent, please all educate your children from right and wrong… read to them!!! such a simple thing.. I guess if you can read.

Most of this kids guns where bb guns. He had 3 actual firearms, The picture showing his guns is misleading. The “grenades” he had where homemade. I doubt putting the mother in jail will help this kids emotional state ( he is NOT dead ). He also never actually did anything but make a plan, he was no longer even attending school anymore at the time. Kids plan goofy fantasys all the time. Those that call for his or his mothers death are hate filled fools.

As a normal gun rights owner. The boy needs more guns.

Excuse me Mark,
The right to bear arms is a very important ammendement. Towns where guns are illegal is where the most crime is. Would you like to rob someones house with a gun? I think not. Our ammendment is not the problem. It’s the parents.

EJF Member~ I was a single mother until I got married a year ago. My 14 year old daughter is also a student of this high school. She is one of the kindest, most level headed, well-adjusted teenagers I know…and would NEVER think to do something like this. Don’t lump all single mothers into one stereotypical category.
And, the father is in the picture with this family (he’s the one that let police in when they presented the search warrant on Wednesday ight)…they just haven’t reported a lot about him.

This child needs psychological help not a 30 year jail sentence.Save that sentence for his idiot parents who thought it was better to buy their child a semi-automatic weapon instead of a book or they could have placed him in any after school program that would allow for him to make some friends and become sociable.they were raising the perfect unibomber.It’s time to hold all parents found neglectfully raising these children responsible, and that goes across the board.Not just for these fools but for all fools whose offspring murder.

As a member of the community where this is happening…and parent of a student in the school, you should know that there is more to this story than all of you are hearing. The kid had other weapons and ammunition stashed with family and neighbors. So, please don’t use the ‘he didn’t have any ammo so there wasn’t a real threat’ line. He did and there was a very real threat.
I’m curious how your opinion on this would change if this was your kid’s school.

Under federal law you must be 21 or older to purchase a handgun and 18 or older to purchase a rifle or shotgun. That is to keep 14 year olds from having firearms. That is why his mother is going to jail for “unlawful transfer of a firearm, possession of a firearm by a minor, corruption of a minor, endangering the welfare of a child and two counts of reckless endangerment”. We as a society, including those of us who think the 2nd Amendment is just as important as the other nine, have agreed that it is reckless and stupid to allow a 14 year old to have a firearm unsupervised. This is no different than a parent buying their kid booze and giving them the keys to the car. Either scenario will likely result in serious damage or death to one or more persons.
I am horrified that a parent let a minor child have that many air guns let alone an actual firearm. However, this incident says nothing about the 2nd Amendment. It says that stupid people shouldn’t breed and that if they do, they and their offspring are a danger to society. You just can’t fix stupid…

Air rifles are BB guns. No real life threat there. But for the 9mm and 22′s, thats a whole differnt story. Good job on the person who turn him in.

It was the right to bear arms that gave each of you freedom to post to this blog. It’s not that the guns became more dangerous, it’s just that we have more idiots in this country. Natural selection would have taken most of you folks out long time ago.

Isnt the second ammendment great…the funny thing is if this kid had gone along with this the mother would have sued the state for its law enforcement gunning down this little punk…good thing they got to him first…

So where did the other 27 guns come from? Score one for the NRA!!!

1st question, are those “real” guns? Answer is yes. They are a device or tool that shoots a projectile under pressure. As does a staple gun, a paint gun, or a squirt gun.
2nd question, aren’t those guns dangerous? Answer – The 9mm carbine (which isn’t a handgun like the article suggests) could be a dangerous if SOMEONE makes it so. By itself laying on a table it isn’t any more dangerous than a hammer or a glass of water. Without any bullets, this gun is more dangerous as a club than as a gun. The rest of the “arsenal” was plastic low-power airsoft BB gun toys. These aren’t the BB guns you might remember from your youth. These barely shoot a soft plastic BB (not hard metal BBs or pellets) across the room. They aren’t high powered air rifles (which CAN be dangerous if SOMEONE uses it in that way). These are spring loaded toys much like the suction cup dart gun toys from the 70′s.
3rd question is shouldn’t gun shows be illegal since that’s where the 9mm came from? Answer is no. A gun show is no different than going to a sporting goods store to buy a gun. You still have to fill out the same legal paperwork and background checks. The only advantage to someone shopping at a gun show is the prices tend to be cheaper because of competition between selling dealers.
What DOES concern me is this kid was making bombs out of explosive black powder and fireworks fuses. The live “hand grenade” he had was one he made.
I feel safe in saying that NO ONE would have wanted this kid to have done anything tragic. Kudos to the friend who alerted the authorities of this kid’s schemes. Kudos to the authorities for stepping in and stopping the planning from continuing. I hope the boy gets the help he needs.
Shame on all the news agencies for misleading people into thinking this kid had accumulated $200,000 worth of illegal assault weapons that are extremely rare. That photo of the “arsenal” is excessively misleading. Shame on the school for allowing the bullying of the kid in the first place. Shame on some of you blog posters for politicising this story. It isn’t about guns. Stop being ignorant. Blaming guns is just an easy way of ignoring the real problem. Dig deeper and ask why this kid wanted to do something violent. That is the real issue that needs to be solved.

“So where did the other 27 guns come from? ” Please pay attention. They were not firearms. They were air soft guns, ie toys. There is no federal control of air soft guns and only a few PC states and cities control them.

Some of the comments made here are as frightening as the story!
I had a menta picture of the parent, which turned out to be nearly identical to the photo of his mother. Imagine that! You can’t tell me that she hasn’t watched TV, meaning that what she was doing was supporting the very behavior she must have seen on the news. That makes her even more stupid!
I’ll bet she was under the control of that juvenile monster. Look at her, does she look to be in control of anything?

What’s with the “possession of a firearm as a minor”? Does that mean that a 16 year old farm kid that hunts by himself is breaking some one size fits all, urban based gun law? That shows how our rights are eroding by the hour. My grandfather was given a gun at ten and told to hunt. It was perfectly acceptable. Enter liberalism, and today some warped commie thinks this is a crime.

What is wrong with the mother? I do not blame the boy at all. It all stems from his upbringing. If I knew my child had psychological problems, of course the first thing I would do is buy him weapons. Come on! Some people should just not be allowed to ever procreate in this world.

I am the mother of one such “disturbed” kid. He had learning disabilities that lead to severe depression once he left elementary school to the “loving arms” of his middle school. The teacher was frustrated and overwhelmed and overworked with too many kids, a harried home life to which she aluded often, and unable to actually do much educating. The classes were actually pitted against one another in some sort of attempt to encourage them to “win” by test scores. This arrangement, rather than leading to a positive outcome, actually caused children of the different classes to tease, taunt and harrass children of less academically successful classes. My child became withdrawn in class…his teacher encouraged the others to tease
“Johnny” when he didn’t score as high as others and brought down the classes score. He stopped participating all together. We began working with a councilor outside of the school who only wanted to give him drugs. He refused to sign the waver to take the medication, so couldn’t participate in the program. AND BELIEVE ME, every effort to get him to participate short of forgery was tried.
At some point, you can NOT physically, as a parent – FORCE a fourteen year old child who is bigger, stronger and more stubborn than you to accept such things. I am NOT a supid, over weight, ignorant woman. I have a medical back ground and am keenly aware of nutritional and psycological issues.
Our family IS an oddity in this society. We are intact, no divorce, or abuse. Our home is clean, we don’t need public assistance to provide shelter or groceries. We are employed and have a good work ethic. We have two physically healthy children, both with exceptionally high I.Q. scores, AND we have an emotionally and mentally damaged child.
What I could not control, dispite constant interaction with my child’s teacher and education team, was the bullying, taunts, and pain that being an outsider causes. I watched my child go from being a successful elementary student to a withdrawn, angry, self-hating, depressed studen, and YES, and Danger to himself and others.
Face it folks, SCHOOL and the school system often is the most frightening, frustrating and dangerous place some young people will ever have to face in their whole lives. Frankly, because I have an older son that THRIVED in the school system, I am aware that not all kids will face that kind of fear and frustration, but for a handful of children, their academic lives will haunt them and live in their memory as the worst part of their lives forever.
You can’t tell me that at least SOME of you posters haven’t had incidents in you life during your school years where you were either the bully or you were bullied. Be honest…and THINK about that.
So as a Mother, you do what you can. If that means home schooling, that is what you do. If that means that your child will at least get out of bed and dress, you allow black clothing. If music give your child some sort of relief, you learn to deal with the hard rythms and angry lyrics coming from your childs room. You accept that the only thing that he shows any interest in are swords, knives, and the like, and allow him some freedom to chose those things if he will at least show some interest in something other than living in a dark room with the windows covered and the only light being the t.v. screen with the sound off. At some point, you can only hope that you still have time on your side and that someday things will get better. That he will grow to understand the source of his pain and allow someone to help overcome it.
At some point, someone has to realize that as a damaged fourteen year old, this child is still unable to understand the consequences of his behavior. He is somewhere between a child crying in his room and a young adult carrying enough anger and frustration that he wants it to end and has the means at his disposal.
Law inforcement is not there to bring him or his Mother to mental health professinals. Their job is to uphold the law and bring this family to “justice.” They can be ordered to seek mental health care, but will not provide it. There will not be rehabilitation of this family, just a serving of the law as it stands, and eventually a more damaged woman and child will be either turned loose back into their community where they will be more ostrasized than ever, or they will remain incarcerated, ever learning only to survive in a pittiless institution.
Be careful what you wish for folks. It’s not a situation with an easy solution. You have the right to your opinions, but think it through. WHAT do you really want the outcome to be in this and other cases like it?
Just my opionion…

I think it is time for everyone to take bullying very seriously. How can anyone take repeated verbal bashing without being harmed by viscous negativity. I do agree that the boy should have had professional counseling, and it was not a smart move on his mother’s part to have guns at his disposal at all. With that said, those who terrorized this boy to the point of destruction should also reap the consequences of their negative actions. They need counseling as much as the boy did. Whomever came up with “sticks and stones” was obviously never bullied.

Firstly, not all of the guns were ‘real’. All but 1 or 2 were high powered BB guns, so things have been blown out of proportion there. Secondly, the guns were most likely his mothers, of which he was allowed to use under controlled conditions, and one day he managed to steal them from the house without her noticing. As for his myspace and violent images, I have his myspace, and it isn’t exactly threatening. He’s a teenage boy, he’s inclined to like violent images. As for the hand grenades, he has one, which is more than likely a tube of gasoline with a rag in the top, obviously dangerous, but the media image of him having some kind of stock pile of high class weapons is laughable. He may well have been planning a shooting, but the point is he is a child, he didn’t specifically plan anything, and hasn’t broken a law, so technically he has to be let go.

Please tell me you didn’t just play the family values card there. The fact that he has a dad has nothing whatsoever to do with this. The original columbine shooters both came from loving backgrounds, and both made a point of commenting on this. We aren’t talking about some inner-city kid from a broken home who’s fallen into gang-lifestyle and drugs. We’re talking about a depressed suburban kid looking for an outlet.

“Anonymous | Oct 12, 2007″
Where is your source? If there was a study, it would be published, wouldn’t it?
Regarding the “today’s parents,” there were crazy parents in the old times as well. The past had its Jesse Pomeroys and other unsavory characters…

I started to read and realize some of you must of been the bullies I had to go to school with. I was underweight and very small. One, the law to be able to discipline a child has been taken from the parents, so the public get’s children that have no adult respect, and I’m not talking about beating a child into submission. I’m talking about spanking 1-3 times on the butt, where God gave us padding for this to happen. And then I woudl sit down with a child and ask them if they knew why I did the spanking. If they didn’t I would use simple terms and then I would tell them, even though I had to spank them, I still loved them and always would and back it up with a hug. And the children while under my care. Never got beat EVER and Never would. But, most of them never forgot how we loved them with a small tap. But, once the child knew the rules, we usually didn’t have to do anything. The children of the earth need bounderies and rules, but they also need real love and caring. They need people that take time to listen to them and yes, the young man need’s some counceling and yes, Mom need’s some parenting class. BUT, the people that take the right’s of a parent away need to reverse this, since it hasn’t made the earth any better to live in since they outlawed the hand to butt education. It worked on us, and I also almost went over the edge in my 8th grade when I was tormented everyday. I ended up with a severe nervous problem and still have it, but have learned to not let it control me. But, I give the glory to God for this. He is the one that helps daily with my life. Before pointing at someones stick in their eye, pluck out your own telephone pole out of yours. Maybe everyone would see better.

way to go, she should be in jail for trying to help her son kill people.

“instead of the aww poor kid got bullied. i was a teacher for several years and trust me when i say that in overcrowded schhols, its impossible almost to help every child from getting bullied or teased. i’d say this kid has more severe problems then just being bullied.”
Doubtful, most teachers don’t write like that, sorry.
And I’m saddened by several people’s responses to how bullying is just a victim’s pity party. Apparently you were never on the end of a bully. Whether it be physical or mental, it hurts, especially when you are a hormonal teen trying to find your place in this world.
I have a son whose hearing impaired in Middle School, who I’ve worry day and night about him having to deal with bullies, so far he’s had no problems, we are fortunate that he has such a positive sunny disposition. However, if he were to be bullied for needing assistance to hear, would you all really tell him to get a life? That it’s his own fault? To take karate? Please, that’s just validating bullies and making it the norm. Bullying needs to be stopped, and parents need to take control of their kids again.
What he tried to do is horrible and there is no excuse. I would be terrified if my children went to that school. But let’s get to the root of the problem, so we can make sure this doesn’t happen at another school.
It’s not a guns fault, nor more than it’s a cars fault that the driver is a speeder and kills someone. It’s not the cars or the beers fault that someone drinks and drives. How about we blame the human that can think and not the inatimate object. People get stabbed, should we do away with our steak knives?
Mom & Dad in this case have alot of explaining to do. I hope the young man can get the help he needs so that maybe he can function in society.

Please stop calling these folks names. They’re already in a world of hurt, and who knows WHAT’S going on with them.

GUNS DON”T KILL PEOPLE>>PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE…..SET A GUN DOWN AND IT WILL DO NOTHING BUT COLLECT DUST A RUST UNTIL SOME DUMB $$$ PICKS IT UP AND SHOOTS IT. SAME WITH A KNIFE…BASEBALL BAT… SPOON….HELL LET’S OUTLAW EVERYTHING…I HAT STUPID PEOPLE.

Guns are not the problem. Our culture of “instant gratification” is…When we start taking responsibility for our actions then our kids will learn from us.

I don’t belive that she planed to attack a high school, but that she buy guns and this stuff for her son that’s stupid. I hope they become good psychological help. And I hope the school don’t have a to big shock because of this.