The Sidney Community School District’s high school is pictured (via Google Maps). Inset: Kaelyn Alexis Surrell (via Fremont County (Iowa) Sheriff’s Office).
An Iowa teenager and fire cadet is behind bars after allegedly planning to target high school students and staff with an arson “hit list.”
Kaelyn Alexis Surrell, 18, is accused of plotting “arson incidents” against at least seven members of the Sidney High School community.
“It is alleged that Surrell, a student at the Sidney High School, created a ‘hit list’ of students and staff at the school, as well as other individuals in the community,” the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release. “It is alleged that Surrell threatened to commit acts of Arson towards the people on this list.”
Surrell was arrested Tuesday and charged with seven counts of felony threat of terrorism and is being held on $5,000 bond, the sheriff’s office said.
According to the criminal complaint reviewed by Law&Crime, Surrell herself told someone about the “hit list.” That person went to the authorities.
“The defendant, Kaelyn Surrell did have a phone conversation with a reporting party advising she had a ‘hit list’ for individuals to cause arson incidents towards,” the complaint says. “The list included other students and employees that are enrolled in the Sidney Community School District. Other individuals included on the list are people she had bad encounters with where she has a motive to carry out harming them.”
Surrell also sent the “hit list” through Snapchat text messages, authorities say.
The complaint notes that Surrell “is a Fire Cadet with the Shenandoah Fire Department, giving her potential knowledge to carry out the act.”
The Shenandoah Fire Department did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s request for information on Surrell’s status as a cadet.
The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office told Law&Crime on Thursday that there is not currently a threat to Sidney High School.
Sidney is located near the Nebraska border, some 160 miles southwest of Des Moines and around 70 miles east of Lincoln.
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