Two students at Fullerton’s Troy High School were arrested Wednesday after allegedly being overheard discussing a school shooting that would be “bigger than Columbine.”
The unidentified 16-year-olds are claimed by a classmate of having made the statement at an athletic event Wednesday before it was reported to an officer assigned to the school, according to a Fullerton Police Department statement. The student witness is also said to have shared a photo of the pair.
Besides mentioning the 1999 Columbine massacre, the arrestees allegedly talked of plans to “shoot up” the school, right down to the different types of guns they would use, say police, who claim further investigation revealed the students had done Internet research on prior school shootings and weapons.
They were booked into juvenile hall on suspicion of making criminal threats and conspiracy to commit a felony.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.