NEW BEDFORD, Mass., Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Three teenage boys described as "freaks" were held Tuesday for what police said was a plot to kill "jocks, preps, thugs and faculty" with bombs and guns at New Bedford High School.
Chilling details of the alleged plot to carry out a Columbine-style massacre, where a dozen students and a teacher at a Colorado high school were murdered in 1999, were contained in police reports unveiled Monday in court when the teenagers were arraigned and ordered held pending a dangerousness hearing next week.
Eric McKeehan, 17, his 15-year-old brother and another 15-year-old boy were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and possession of ammunition.
Another suspect, a 17-year-old girl, was expected to be arraigned Tuesday while a juvenile male was expected to surrender on Wednesday.
The self-styled gothic "freaks" were angry at the way they were treated by other students, and talked of "getting everyone back for calling us names and beating us with ugly sticks," according to a note a janitor found last week and turned over to police.
One 16-year-old student listed as a suspect in court documents but not immediately under arrest told New Bedford Police detective John R. Ribeiro III of the alleged plot.
Ribeiro wrote the student told him he, the McKeehan brothers and the other minor suspect planned "to come into the school with our black trench coats and skip home-room period and go directly to the bathrooms. We would have shotguns and handguns hidden under our coats" and when the bell sounded for students to change classes, "we would come out shooting everyone in sight, from thugs, preps and faculty."
Ribeiro said the student told him "thugs" referred to black and Hispanic students.
The female suspect told Officer Stephen A. Taylor "the plan was to kill as many students and teachers as possible."
The girl told investigators that "things would be loaded at night and the start of the next day in the core of the school they would just start shooting everyone from teachers to students."
After all the shooting was done, the group planned to go to the roof of the school, smoke pot and drink alcohol, and "After partying for a while, they would all point their guns at each other and shoot each other," Taylor said the girl told him.
Taylor said the female suspect decided to back out of the plan after having second thoughts because she did not want one of her favorite teachers killed.
The girl allegedly said the McKeehan brothers had been thinking about the plan since Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris carried out the Columbine school shootings, according to the police reports.
The plot came to police attention on Oct. 17 when a female student told a teacher about overhearing others discuss rumors of an attack.
During subsequent police searchers of the suspects' homes, they found plans for making bombs, shotgun shells, spent cartridges, bullets, Satanic writings and photographs of Adolf Hitler.
Police reports said on the wall of one bedroom were written the words, "I hate the world," "Everyone must die," and "Kill everyone."
No guns were found, however.
Because the note the janitor found last week referred to a "Monday" date for the attack, nearly half of the school's 3,300 students stayed home on Monday.
The janitor told the New Bedford Standard-Times that in the letter two students ask each other, "Are you ready? Are you ready for Monday" and that they talk about blowing something up.
New Bedford School Superintendent Joseph S. Silva Jr. said he believes the suspects were serious about carrying out their threats.
"I certainly do believe something would have resulted," he said.
Police Chief Arthur J. Kelly said he believed something serious was planned.
"When you look at the evidence in its totality, absent some intervening force," Kelly said, "in all likelihood they would have done what they said they would."
