Two Long Island Teens Charged with School Plot
YAPHANK, N.Y. (AP) -- Two teenagers were arrested for plotting a Columbine-like assault against students and staff at a Long Island high school, identifying several of their potential victims by name in a videotape made by one of the suspects, Suffolk County police said Friday.
"I will start a chain of terrorism in the world,'' the 15-year-old charged in the planned assault wrote in one of several chilling journal entries. "This will go down in history. Take out everyone there. Perfecto.''
The two suspects, co-workers at a suburban McDonald's, targeted scores of students in an attack they planned for April 20, 2008 -- the ninth anniversary of the Columbine High School rampage, where 12 students and a teacher were killed.
The two students responsible for the 1999 massacre in Colorado took their own lives.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer quoted from the journal in announcing the arrests for the plot at Connetquot High School in Bohemia, about 50 miles east of New York City. The 15-year-old, a student at the school, was recently suspended from Connetquot for making threats of violence, he said.
Authorities identified him as the driving force behind the plan. The other suspect was a friend who attended another Long Island high school.
On July 6, school authorities obtained a handwritten journal that contained ``numerous terrorist threats and plans to attack the school on a future date,'' police said. The journal was turned over to the school after the 15-year-old apparently dropped it in the McDonald's parking lot, Dormer said.
"He felt that everyone was against him,'' Dormer said of the 15-year-old, whose name was withheld due to his age. "The world was against him. He was upset at life in general and the world in general.''
Both teens were charged with misdemeanor conspiracy, punishable by up to a year in jail. The second suspect, 17-year-old Michael McDonough, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday, with bail set at $25,000 cash or $50,000 bond.
His father told the court that McDonough, who attended Sachem North High School, was receiving mental health counseling. Neighbors in the mobile home park where McDonough lives described him as ``a nice boy'' who did errands for them like mowing the lawn.
The 15-year-old was scheduled to appear in juvenile court Friday. Authorities also recovered videotapes made by him. "It was akin to the tapes that we all saw from Columbine,'' Dormer said.
A search warrant was issued for the 15-year-old's computer. Dormer said the teen attempted several times to buy five pounds of explosive black powder and an Uzi machine rifle, and said police were still investigating to see "if any weapons have been acquired over the Internet.''
More than 2,000 students attend Connetquot High School in Bohemia, a working-class community near Brookhaven on the eastern end of Long Island. The school building is open during the summer, but does not hold classes.
Top photo of Michael McDonough from Suffolk police.
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