Four teenagers were arrested Friday after police uncovered a plot to shoot and kill students and teachers at a Tuolumne, California, high school, officials said.
Tuolumne County Sheriff James Mele did not name the four male Summerville High School students, and they have not been charged. Mele said that students at the Northern California school heard the suspects talking about the shooting last week, and notified staff members, who then called the sheriff's office. "Detectives located evidence verifying a plot to shoot staff and students at Summerville High School," he said. "The suspects' plan was very detailed in nature and included names of would-be victims, locations, and the methods in which the plan was to be carried out."
Mele said that the suspects were in the process of securing weapons, NBC News reports, and "pretty doggone close" to being able to carry out the plot. "I have no idea why somebody or a group of individuals would want to do this," he said, before adding, "Cyber-bullying is a problem in our society. I think children today have a hard time trying to understand what is reality and what is fiction."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
What to know before turning to AI for financial advicethe explainer It can help you crunch the numbers — but it might also pocket your data
-
Book reviews: 'The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief' and 'Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run'Feature The search for a headache cure and revisiting Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album on its 50th anniversary
-
Keith McNally' 6 favorite books that have ambitious charactersFeature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
-
The countries around the world without jury trialsThe Explainer Legal systems in much of continental Europe and Asia do not rely on randomly selected members of the public
-
ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suitSpeed Read The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos' on-air assertion that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll
-
Judge blocks Louisiana 10 Commandments lawSpeed Read U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled that a law ordering schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security lawSpeed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitutionspeed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidenceSpeed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulationsSpeed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
