MADISON, Wis. — A 13-year-old boy who had researched college shootings on-line was arrested hours after he tried to enter a Wisconsin elementary college with suspicious baggage, police mentioned.
Investigators imagine the boy was armed, judging by movies of him brandishing what investigators imagine was a rifle and feedback he made to different college students, mentioned Patrick Patton, police chief in Kenosha, a metropolis on Lake Michigan between Milwaukee and Chicago.
“We narrowly missed a tragedy,” Patton mentioned at a information convention Thursday afternoon.
The teenager tried to enter Roosevelt Elementary Faculty round 9 a.m. Thursday with a backpack and a duffle bag, based on police. Employees members grew suspicious and moved to query him, however he fled.
Kenosha Unified colleges had been positioned on lockdown for the remainder of the day as police looked for the boy. They lastly arrested him at his residence that afternoon.
The teenager attends Mahone Center Faculty in Kenosha and was a former Roosevelt Elementary scholar, police mentioned, however they haven’t launched his identify. They mentioned in a information launch Friday that he has been charged with making terroristic threats. Kenosha County District Legal professional Michael Graveley mentioned in an electronic mail to The Related Press on Friday that the boy shall be prosecuted in juvenile courtroom, the place proceedings are confidential.
It was unclear Friday whether or not the boy was really armed when he tried to enter the elementary college. Patton mentioned investigators imagine he was carrying a firearm, however the chief has not mentioned whether or not police recovered any weapons or ammunition from him.
A search of his residence netted a number of pellet weapons that resembled actual handguns and a pellet rifle that resembled an actual rifle, police mentioned in Friday’s information launch. The boy’s mom advised investigators he didn’t have entry to any precise firearms.
The teenager advised detectives he went to the elementary college to promote sweet however later advised a social employee he meant to scare college students, police mentioned.
Investigators additionally “have info that the suspect carried out a number of web searches associated to high school shootings,” Patton mentioned Thursday, including that the teenager had shared movies and made a number of feedback to fellow college students for weeks earlier than Thursday.
“That is one thing that had been advised to individuals of his rising intentions,” Patton mentioned. “We all know that there’s web searches, and all of the purple flags that we might search for and anticipate somebody to report had been there.”
Police acquired no less than one video of the coed wielding what investigators imagine is a rifle, Patton mentioned. The chief performed a video at a information convention Thursday that reveals the coed holding a firearm as he seems to follow room-entry methods, Patton mentioned. The chief didn’t specify when or the place the video was filmed, however it seems to have been filmed in a house.
“The Kenosha Police Division had motive to imagine the suspect had entry to some kind of firearm based mostly on movies on social media and different witness info,” the company mentioned in Friday’s information launch. “The actions on scene had been extraordinarily suspicious and the web exercise by the suspect instructed that they had in depth analysis historical past associated to earlier college shootings, info on the right way to execute a college taking pictures, and specifics concerning the focused constructing.”
The coed was taken into custody some six months after police shot and killed an armed scholar exterior a Wisconsin center college following a report of somebody with a weapon. The Could taking pictures in Mount Horeb, exterior Madison, despatched youngsters fleeing and led to an hourslong lockdown of native colleges. Prosecutors introduced in August that the officers who fatally shot the coed wouldn’t face prison costs.
Kenosha made nationwide headlines in August 2020 after a white police officer shot a Black man throughout a home disturbance, leaving him paralyzed. The taking pictures spurred a number of nights of protests. A white Illinois teenager named Kyle Rittenhouse shot three individuals through the unrest, killing two of them. A jury ultimately acquitted Rittenhouse of any wrongdoing after he argued he fired in self-defense.
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