Boy’s plot a ‘blaze of hatred,’ files show

Police arrest student, seize rifles, handguns

PAUL SAND; The News Tribune
Last updated: April 25th, 2006 01:21 AM (PDT)

Pierce County sheriff’s deputies arrested the boy Sunday at his home, said spokesman Ed Troyer. He made his first court appearance Monday on an attempted first-degree assault charge, said Fred Wist, juvenile division chief of the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

The boy will be held at Remann Hall juvenile jail in Tacoma, he said.

The arrest marks at least the third time in recent weeks that a South Sound school has been affected by real or threatened violence. Earlier this month, three students from Key Peninsula Middle School were arrested and charged in a plot to set fire to the school and shoot selected students and staff.

In the third case, a 16-year-old boy faces charges after he allegedly set off fireworks inside a glass bottle at Orting Middle School last week. He apparently was involved in a dispute with another student.

In the Rogers High School case, sheriff’s investigators learned of the boy’s plan Saturday from school officials who’d been told of an instant message conversation he had with a friend, court documents state.

According to documents, the boy wrote that he wanted “to finally go out in a blaze of hatred and fury … to wrongly hurt others for my own sick pleasure before ending it for myself.”

He wrote also: “I have the whole plan. I want to die and I will. … But, I want to be hated when I leave.” The boy also referenced “15 rounds,” guns and how he planned to get them.

Deputies arrested the boy and searched his home, in the 9400 block of 137th Street East, on Sunday at about 9:30 a.m., sheriff’s spokesman Troyer said. Investigators found two rifles, two handguns, ammunition, a homemade bomb and a copy of “The Anarchist Cookbook,” an underground publication that includes directions to make explosives, Troyer said.

The boy and his parents were cooperative during the search, which also yielded three computers, he said.

The boy told investigators that he planned to return home from school Wednesday after his stepfather went to work and steal his locked-up .22 caliber rifle and handgun “because it was easy to conceal,” documents state.

He figured it would take about 30 minutes to walk home from school, load the guns and walk back, according to the documents. Back at the school, he planned “to take people out and save the last round for himself,” court documents state.

He also revealed to investigators he’d posted some of his thoughts on his MySpace.com page.

In a blog posting dated March 28 and titled “I Am Hated...I Am Feared...I Am Nothing,” the boy writes: “I’m done. This is it. It’s all over. The gloves come off and I’m more than ready to start spilling blood. You all act like I’m evil. ... I am not an (angry) person, I don’t hurt people.”

The boy told investigators he’d made the bomb, but that it didn’t have a fuse and he did not plan to use it.

He was just curious if he could make it and if it would work, the documents state.

No one answered the door Monday afternoon at the boy’s house, located on a quiet cul-de-sac about a mile from his high school.

School officials will send a letter home today that explains what happened and reminds students of the consequences of making threats, said Karen Hansen, spokeswoman for the Puyallup School District.

“It’s, of course, very troubling to us that we had a student of ours pose these kinds of threats,” she said. “We are extremely grateful that upon learning the plot that our student called administration immediately so that we could notify law enforcement.”

Paul Sand: 253-597-8872

paul.sand@thenewstribune.com

Originally published: April 25th, 2006 01:00 AM (PDT)