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Ohio boy who shot self at school had plans to carry out mass shooting, police say

By Ray Downs

March 1 (UPI) -- A 13-year-old Ohio boy who shot himself in his school's bathroom had plans to carry out a school shooting, police said Thursday.

7th grader Keith Simons died as a result from the self-inflicted gunshot with a .22-caliber long gun he brought to a middle school in Jackson Township, Ohio on Feb. 21. Afterward, police searched through his phone and said they found notes indicating the boy had plans to kill several of his fellow students.

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"[T]his will be bigger than anything this country's ever seen...I've been planning this for a few weeks and thought about it a few months, I will never be forgotten I'll be a stain in American history and the [redacted last name]'s history, it's going to be so much fun. They won't expect a thing," the boy wrote, according to police.

Simons also allegedly praised Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolt, the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

"I'll look in to those scared little britches eyes before I kill them there's now I'll have followers because I'm so awesome I know someone will follow me just like I followed Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolt's me and them want close to the same thing, It's going to be fun," Simons wrote, according to police. "They say school shootings are horrible but they don't think like us like me Eric and Dylan."

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The notes also indicate Simons imagined the reaction after his death.

"I'm going to die doing it, I hate those people, when they interview my parents and ask how they didn't see the signs they should know it's not them it's me and it's because of how I see the world...I'd hurt and destroy something bigger but my schools an easy target," the note said.

Police said the notes were written between Feb. 14 -- the day of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. that killed 17 people -- and Feb. 20, one day before he brought a gun to school and shot himself.

Cleveland.com reported that the boy brought the gun to school unnoticed until he went into the bathroom, where a student saw the weapon and ran to notify authorities.

Police said the boy took the gun from his mother's house and had 80 rounds of ammunition with him at the time of his death. He also had materials police believe were to make a bomb, including aerosol cans, bottle rockets and batteries.

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