Planned School Attack
On December 15, 2005, two former Quartz Hill students were arrested for planning a Columbine style massacre at the school. The two youths allegedly intended to attack the school on February 14, 2006. News reports described them as goths and indicated that they had accumulated knives, ammunition, a gas mask and bomb-making instructions. They were charged on December 19, 2005 with conspiracy to commit murder.
Tensions flared again on January 13, 2006, when a rumor that the former students who had been arrested would again attempt to attack the school using pipe-bombs. According to Principal Mark Bryant, the planned attacks were merely "rumor, upon rumor, upon rumor." This "Friday the 13th" rumor was passed between students via internet messages and cell-phone text messages. In response to the threat, nearly 50% of the student body was absent from the campus by the time the school day had finished. In the end, the only disruption to the day was a firecracker explosion within a trash can during the school's lunch break.
Read more about this topic: Quartz Hill High School
Famous quotes containing the words planned, school and/or attack:
“Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Children in home-school conflict situations often receive a double message from their parents: “The school is the hope for your future, listen, be good and learn” and “the school is your enemy. . . .” Children who receive the “school is the enemy” message often go after the enemy—act up, undermine the teacher, undermine the school program, or otherwise exercise their veto power.”
—James P. Comer (20th century)
“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.”
—Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)