America continues to have a serious gun issue, especially in regards to mass shootings at schools. Things almost recently turned horrific at Harns Marsh middle school in Lee County, FL.
According to The Guardian, a 13-year-old and 14-year-old boy planned to execute a Columbine-type shooting at this school. They are being charged with conspiring to commit a mass shooting and are being held at a detention center.
These 8th-grade students were quickly arrested after a teacher at Harns Marsh was made aware that one of them might’ve had a gun in his backpack Sheriff Carmine Marceno revealed that no firearm was found, but instead, a map of locations of cameras at the school.
When they executed a search warrant, here is what was found.
Investigators found “disturbing evidence” at the boys’ homes, including knives and a gun. They also found evidence the boys were attempting to learn how to purchase firearms on the black market and how to construct pipe bombs.
An investigation was soon conducted by the sheriff’s department’s youth services criminal investigations division and concluded that the teens were “involved in a plot to carry out a school shooting.” They even studied the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado to figure out how to execute the mass shooting.
Police were also said to have visited the homes of these boys 80 times, in total, in the past. This school’s location is also two hours away from Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, where 17 people were killed in 2018.
“I commend the students who came forward to report the threat and the quick action of the staff,” said Alex Dworzanski, principal of Harns Marsh middle school. The safety of our students and staff is at the core of what we do.”
Flip the page to watch the press conference by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office about these arrests.
