Two Southwest Florida teenagers were arrested Thursday after police accused them of planning a Columbine-style massacre at their middle school, according to reports.
The boys face charges of conspiracy to commit a mass shooting, the Fort Myers News-Press reported, citing a news conference by Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno.
The suspects were identified by NBC2 as Conner Pruitt, 13, and Phillip Byrd, 14.
Both were being evaluated at a mental health facility, reports said.
The alleged mass shooting plot was foiled Wednesday when another student at Harns Marsh Middle School in Lehigh Acres alerted a teacher to a gun concealed inside a backpack.
A school resource officer and administration officials searched the belongings of the eighth graders but did not find a weapon, the News-Press reported. Instead, deputies recovered a map of the school that was diagrammed to show the location of surveillance cameras, Marceno said.
“This could have been the next Parkland massacre, but we stopped them in the planning stages,” Marceno said in reference to the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the News-Press reported.
As the preliminary investigation unfolded, the Youth Services Criminal Investigations Division determined the teens were inspired by the shooting attack on Columbine High School in suburban Denver on April 20, 1999, when two teens murdered 12 students and a teacher and wounded two dozen others before taking their own lives.
“This could have been the next Parkland massacre, but we stopped them in the planning stages."
After warrants were obtained, police raided the homes of both boys on Willard Avenue and Oakfield Avenue South early Thursday, according to NBC2, citing neighbors who live in the area.
Marceno said detectives found evidence that the boys had sought information on how to make pipe bombs and how to purchase firearms on the black market, the News-Press reported.
Authorities have searched the homes of both teens nearly 80 times and have found at least one gun and several knives, the News-Press reported.
NBC2 posted multiple photographs of evidence that sheriff’s officials collected inside the homes, which show several hunting rifles, handmade shanks, and an assortment of ammunition and spent shell casings. A Confederate flag is also shown hanging inside one of the homes containing the motto “The South Will Rise Again.”
Officials have since declared the middle school safe and have not indicated that any other students were involved.
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