Two students arrested in Columbine-style plot (AP)

[gruven]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/01/13/creating.columbine.ap/index.html

DUTCHTOWN, Louisiana (AP) -- Two high school students were arrested and accused of creating an elaborate plan to re-create the bloody Columbine High School massacre on its five-year anniversary in April.

Christopher Levins, 17, of Prairieville and Adam Sinclair, 19, of Geismar were each booked Monday with one count of terrorizing -- a felony punishable with up to 15 years in prison, Ascension Parish Sheriff Jeff Wiley said.

"This is not just a case of kids just talking to be cool," Wiley said. "These students had plans all worked out."

The alleged plot was discovered after an anonymous call was made to Dutchtown High School on Friday indicated some kind of armed disturbance was being planned. Levins and Sinclair admitted some of the planning but called it a "fantasy" and a joke, and said they never really planned to go through with it, Lt. Kevin Hanna said.

Deputies said they found drawings and papers about the April 20, 1999, shootings at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people before committing suicide. Twenty-three others were wounded.

Poems by the pair about being bullied and numerous writings in which Levins, a senior, and Sinclair, a sophomore, refer to themselves as "The Trenchcoat Mafia" were also found, authorities said. Harris and Klebold had been said to belong to a loosely knit group with that name at Columbine, though investigators later said they were not part of it.

"We found one drawing that had the student blowing the brains out of a particular teacher," Wiley said. Another depicted Levins and Sinclair on a school roof celebrating around dead bodies hanging out of windows, officers said.

"Apparently, they were planning to wake up at 4:20 a.m. on April 20 of this year to do this," Maj. Tony Bacala said.

Authorities said no weapons were found, although detectives did find evidence that Levins and Sinclair had obtained information on buying shotguns and rifles.

The investigation is continuing and more arrests are possible, Wiley said. Neither student has a criminal record, and school officials said neither was a discipline problem.

Efforts to reach the two students' families for comment were unsuccessful Tuesday morning. There were no telephone listings for Levins or Sinclair in the area.

 

[OF]

"Apparently, they were planning to wake up at 4:20 a.m. on April 20 of this year to do this,"

420 is a pot culture reference, for what it's worth.

- Gabe

 

[R-Tex12]

...Adam Sinclair, 19 ... a sophomore,...

A 19-year-old high school SOPHOMORE???

R-Tex

 

[Sean Smith]

Sigh.

I'm skeptical of the value of public education in general, but one of the really nasty things about it is the degree of abuse that it allows kids to inflict on each other. Bullies are pretty much allowed free reign to terrorize anybody who is different or otherwise makes a good target, not counting the mental abuse kids tend to heap on each other. Discipline tends to be a joke, or woefully misdirected towards kids who bring Asthma meds to school.

In that context, the fact that some small % of kids in that situation are going to fantasize about killing off a few people is hardly surprising. If anything, it is the natural reaction of people treated like crap 24/7 to either want to kill themselves, or kill the source of their abuse, or both. And ALOT of high school kids grow up being treated like crap 24/7. For people who aren't pretty and popular, going through public high school is as often as not a living hell.

None of which justifies planning to wipe out the school. By the time you are old enough that you should be ready to graduate from high school, if you aren't ethically evolved enough to NOT go around killing people, society needs to deal with you as an adult criminal. But anybody who has actually gone through public high school shouldn't be surprised that people would want to act as Harris and Klebold did.

 

[Monkeyleg]

Sorry, Sean, but I have to disagree with you about bullying and aberrant behavior. There have been bullies in schools for as long as there have been schools. Only since Columbine has the public decided it was some kind of peculiar problem.

Upon graduation, my older brother bequeathed to me all of the enemies that he'd left behind at school as well as their brothers. For four years I pretty much had to fight one bully or another, on average once or twice a week. Sometimes I won, most times I lost. It didn't scar me; I think it made me a stronger person.

 

[DCR]

420 is a pot culture reference, for what it's worth.

What's it mean?

Also: note 4:20 on 4/20 (2004) - a double-double entendre with the pot culture reference? Bet those yahoos think they're real clever.

 

[El Tejon]

19 year old sophie!!! At university maybe!!!

 

[nico]

420 is a pot culture reference, for what it's worth.

it's also hitler's birthday

 

[BowStreetRunner]

420 refers to the chemical compostion of marijuana or something
BSR

 

[greyhound]

420 is a pot culture reference, for what it's worth

I always heard everybody was supposed to "get high" at 4:20 PM.

Some kind of Grateful Dead reference or something.

Plus I agree: a 19 YO high school sophomore? What's up with that?

 

[Ryder]

420 Snopes

 

[c_yeager]

So, the sum of the evidence was a drawing of shooting one of their teachers and a lot of refferences to a previous school shooting? I certainly hope there is more to it than that.

 

[artherd]

I sure hope they had more evidence than a bunch of writings and one drawn picture...

Like, uh, some pipe bombs. And actual, ah, plans. And stuff.


4:20 on 4/20. Hah, real classy guys.

 

[Zach S]

from snopes:
It's the code you send to your drug dealer's pager.

Yeah, right. All drug dealers recognize a '420' page as "Please be waiting on the corner with my baggie of wildwood weed."

Maybe not all, but if you're a regular customer and punch 420 in before or after your number, he'll know your buying and not needing something else, like to borrow his car or get his help moving a sofa. Hell, of you know your dealer well enough that hell let you use his car or help move a sofa, chances are he'll deliver...

Yeah, OK, so I put the "high" in high school. I have since wised up.

 

[c_yeager]

Authorities said no weapons were found, although detectives did find evidence that Levins and Sinclair had obtained information on buying shotguns and rifles

Maybe we read different articles.

 

[Chuck Jennings]

For people who aren't pretty and popular, going through public high school is as often as not a living hell.

I have always thought that Jr High and High school is one of the worst things that can happen to a person.

There have been bullies in schools for as long as there have been schools.

That is true, however, the dropout rate has dropped dramatically in the past 20 or so years. This is not just because of better education. It is because it is much harder to kick a kid out o school than it used to be. (Unless of course you run afoul of some of the ridiculous "no tolerance laws") Additionally, principals are under pressure to keep suspensions down, as that affects the amount of money that the school gets from the state. (Funding for public schools is based in part on attendance.) The end result are kids in the schools that are just there making it bad for everyone, and not doing any learning. Kids that dropped out or were kicked out years ago are staying in school, and thanks to social promotion, graduate.