Three teens held in alleged plot at school
No weapons were found in the alleged plot, planned for years from now, but it still sent a chill through the school.
"I know it sounds like a cliché, but it just never seemed like it could happen here," said Jessica Bloodsaw, a senior at the large school south of Tacoma.
"It changes the way you think about, and look at, people," Bloodsaw said. "It makes you wonder about the people who are sitting apart and makes you want to ask them, 'Are you sitting there because you want to or because you don't feel accepted?' "
Monday night, Pierce County sheriff's deputies arrested three members of the school's Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program on investigation of threatening to bomb and injure people after a parent tipped off a school official.
The three suspects — a 16-year-old boy, an 18-year-old boy and an 18-year-old girl — allegedly planned the attack, police said, in retaliation for years of teasing by other students and because at least one of them harbored anti-government views. The Seattle Times generally does not name criminal suspects before they are formally charged.
Investigators found hand-drawn floor plans of the school, notebooks and other documentation of an alleged plan to take over and attack the school with weapons and bomb-type items, Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.
The three students did not have weapons or access to weapons, and the alleged plot appears to have been scheduled for several years down the line.
Initial reports that the three may have been part of a larger anti-government group do not appear to be true, Troyer said yesterday afternoon.
"The suspects asked kids to be in the anti-government group, and, if they didn't say no, they were added to the list. There has been no meeting, and the other kids did not even know they were on the list," Troyer said.
Students at the school said they were surprised, and a little frightened, that anyone would feel so alienated in their school, which they described as more diverse, more tolerant and less clique-ish than other schools they knew.
"I think those kids are crazy," said junior Brandon Orchard, who was hanging out with a group of students. "It's shocking and not representative of our school," said student-body President Matt Wickens.
Prosecutors are reviewing the case to determine what charges can be filed against the two 18-year-olds, who were booked into Pierce County Corrections Center, and the 16-year-old, who was booked into a juvenile detention center.
The arrests underscore the seriousness with which school officials and educators nationwide view threats and rumors of threats in the wake of the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Colorado in which two disenfranchised teens shot and killed 12 schoolmates and a teacher before turning the guns on themselves.
Spanaway school officials yesterday said that it was in that spirit of vigilance that they contacted police as soon as they heard reports about the alleged threat.
"This is the sort of thing that has been very much on the minds of every school district in the state," said Mark Wenzel, communications director for Spanaway Lake's school district, Bethel Public Schools.
There have been other arrests in the state in the past few years for alleged threats made by students against their schools and classmates, including the arrest in October of an Ingraham High School student for posting an alleged hit list of 15 fellow students on the Internet.
Spanaway Lake High School Principal Greg Eisnaugle said he told students in an announcement yesterday morning that the alleged plan had not been imminent or particularly well thought out, but that school administrators and police had taken it seriously.
A letter sent home to parents encouraged people to tell school officials when they "hear about a threat, harassment of a student or any other case where a member of our community could be hurt."
In the halls of the spacious single-level school yesterday, few of the nearly 2,000 students seemed to know details about the arrests beyond what had been broadcast earlier over the public-announcement system.
Senior Savannah Ross said she was frightened by the initial rumors that there were kids involved in the alleged plot.
"I was scared and wanted to go home," she said.
Her friend, Tamika Riley, agreed.
"I really think they should have called off school. And it would be good if they called it off tomorrow, too."
Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com