Teen allegedly plotted to blow up school

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TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 17 (UPI) -- A Florida teenager was ordered held in secure detention Wednesday after being charged with planning to blow up the Tampa high school that expelled him.

Jared Cano, 17, whose mother is a math teacher at another high school, was arrested Tuesday, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reported. At his hearing, prosecutors said police found a marijuana-growing operation in his home along with bomb-making supplies and a journal with a diagram of Freedom High School.

Jane Castor, the Tampa police chief, said at a news conference the explosives could have killed a number of people.

"We were probably able to thwart potentially a catastrophic event the likes of which Tampa has not seen and hopefully never will," she said.

Prosecutors said Cano had been arrested a number of times on juvenile charges. But they said in most cases the charges were dismissed or simply not pursued, the newspaper reported.

On his Facebook page, Cano talks about marijuana while his MySpace page includes a picture with a hookah and a stack of money.

He made a post to Facebook on Tuesday morning: "i jut did the dumbest thing ever!"