Her Grandson's Diary Stunned Her. Then She Opened His Guitar Case

Wash. police are praising a grandmother for possibly stopping a potential school shooting
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 15, 2018 12:59 PM CST
Cops: Teen Held 'Coin Toss' to Pick What Wash. School to Target
A Washington grandmother may have prevented an awful crime.   (Getty Images/anyaberkut)

Amid the headlines about Wednesday's massacre in Parkland, Fla., comes word of a teen who may have had similar designs on his Washington school. The Seattle Times reports a woman called 911 Tuesday after stumbling across her 18-year-old grandson's journal and finding "upcoming and credible threats," per an Everett Police Department release. Some of the entries, per a police report, included that he'd been paying attention to school shootings in the news for pointers so he could eventually pull off his own, resulting in what he hoped would be an "infamous" shooting with a huge death toll. The unidentified teen wrote in his diary that he couldn't wait to enter a class at ACES High School and "blow all those [expletives] away."

He also detailed how he'd carry it out, including stashing a rifle in his guitar case and making pressure bombs, per court documents. He allegedly wrote it was a "coin toss" that determined ACES was the school he'd target (his former school was also said to be considered). His grandmother said she then found a rifle she hadn't realized he had in the aforementioned guitar case. "We are really grateful to the grandmother," a Mukilteo School District rep tells the Times. "It couldn't have been easy for her to do." The teen was arrested on attempted murder charges at school on Tuesday, and not without incident: Court docs indicate he got a hand free while at the police precinct and made a run for it. When he slipped and fell, he "mule-kicked" the officer who restrained him. (More school shooting stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X