A high school junior in New York may have prevented an 18-year-old man from carrying out a shooting last week at a Vermont high school, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported.
Angela McDevitt, 17, who attends Arlington High School in Lagrangeville, New York, said she was trading Facebook messages with Jack Sawyer of Poultney, Vermont, when he said that he planned "on shooting up" his former high school in Fair Haven, something he had been considering for two years, the Journal reported.
“I was very conflicted on what to do because this was not the Jack that I knew in person,” McDevitt told the Journal.
McDevitt decided to bring the Facebook messages to the attention of a school official. Sawyer was arrested on Feb. 15, WPTZ reported. He pleaded not guilty the following day on charges that include attempted murder.
According to court documents, Sawyer bought the gun at Dick's Sporting Goods in Rutland, WPTZ reported. The alleged rampage was planned for March 14, according to court documents.
McDevitt told the Journal that she met Sawyer when both were residents at a residential treatment center in Maine.
“He was just a very kind person when I knew him,” McDevitt told the Journal. “I was very sad. I was very conflicted but I knew that I had to (report Sawyer’s messages) because it was a matter of lives at hand. It wasn’t a matter of just hurting someone’s feelings.”
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