Just as Edmond North High School students were preparing for spring break, police revealed that a student had been planning a "mass-casualty event"at the school.
About two weeks before the announcement, two students approached school administration with concerns that their friend was suicidal. The pair saidthat over the snow days earlier in the month, they had been exchanging text messages with a friend, and the tone of those messages escalated to thepoint that the teens thought their friend was in immediate danger.
Upon hearing details of their concern, school administration pulled the young man from his classes and contacted his parents. Edmond police took the 16-year-oldboy immediately from campus to an in-patient mental health facility.
The teen reportedly told a counselor that he had planned to detonate explosives at the school in order to claim student and teacher lives. According toa search warrant, he told the counselor that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the school mass murderers who killed thirteen people and injured 24 othersat Columbine High School, "didn't kill enough people."
Investigators allegedly discovered explosive components and fuses as well as an exploded device in the teen's home. They say that the teen's concernedfriends derailed a mass-casualty event at the school by coming forward with their worries. Police say the teen was still in the testing phases of buildingthe explosives, and that Edmond North Students were never in immediate danger.
A search of the teen's home and mental health records from an Edmond counseling center allegedly reveal the plans for an attack at the high school, whichincluded using a car bomb and backpack bombs to create explosions in the school and locking doors around the cafeteria and the Freshman Academy toprevent students and teachers from fleeing the planned destruction.
As of this writing, the teen has not been charged in the case. However, last week the Edmond Police Department presented the Oklahoma County District'sAttorney's Office with charges for consideration:
The potential charges against the teen are troubling, and they present a clear picture of why it is important to be aware of mental health warning signsamong children, teens, and adults.
