Oregon Teenager Arrested After Planning Columbine-Style Attack On High School
An Oregon high school student has been arrested after plotting to bomb his high school in an attack “forged and inspired by the model of the Columbine shootings.” He is currently facing charges of attempted aggravated murder.
Grant Acord, 17, will be charged as an adult as he faces the attempted murder charges as well as six counts of manufacturing and possessing a destructive device, the Associated Press reports.
On Thursday, police received a tip that the teenager was plotting to bomb his school and quickly searched Acord’s mother’s home in Albany, about 75 miles south of Portland. There, police found napalm, pipe bombs, drain cleaner bombs, Molotov cocktails and materials for creating other explosives.
The weapons were found in "a secret compartment that had been created in the floorboards" of Acord’s room, according to Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson’s statements to CNN.
Soon after, police searched West Albany High School, where Acord is a junior. No explosives were found, though police plan to continue searching the premises until school resumes on Tuesday morning. Police have already searched the high school twice, including the night Acord was arrested, but plan to return at least one more time over the weekend with dogs to search the area more thoroughly.
Police have not stated when Acord planned to conduct his attack on the high school, though court documents will supposedly reveal the date later.
“That said there were also some indications that it could happen at any time, too,” Haroldson told the Associated Press. “So you have - A -the methodical planning and then - B - I suppose he could get really excited about it and go early.”
Despite the teenager’s grim plans, Haroldson says that Acord was not seen as a troubled child in school and never received so much as a suspension from school.
“In any case that you have a young person that in essence plans to take a video game approach to killing people at school, you have to take a close look at the mental health issues,” he said. “And the process will certainly provide for that once he’s represented by counsel.”
Acord is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.
The arrest comes almost exactly 15 years after another Oregon teenager, Kip Kinkel, murdered his parents and then opened fire at Thurston High School in Springfield, killing two fellow students and wounding 25. Now 30, he has been appealing his 112-year prison term, without success.
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