Pierce County deputies seized 23 firearms and multiple boxes of ammunition during search of home.
Police in Washington state last week arrested a 13-year-old boy “with school shooter ideations who was making threats to kill.”
Pierce County Sheriff’s Office investigators said they found 23 firearms and several boxes of ammunition when they conducted a search of the home, noting that “firearms were mounted on walls and accesible at any time to be taken down, and handguns were found unsecured throughout the home.”
Police said the found evidence in the boy’s bedroom indicating “he was obsessed with past school shooters and imitated similar behaviors with photos and inscriptions throughout his room.”
Although they found no evidence linking the teen to a planned shooting, detectives said he appeared to have “everything ready to go to commit a mass shooting type of incident.”
They found loaded magazines with “school shooter writings on them,” along with clothing and other writings “that would support a typical mass shooting scenario.”
The boy was last enrolled in school in 2021, they said.
the boy was arrested on September 6 and appeared in court on Monday, when he pleaded not guilty to five counts, including one count of a threat to bomb or injure property and three counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, KOMO reported. The fifth charge was a misdemeanor.
The boy’s parents told KOMO that the entire situation was a misunderstanding and that the charges were blown out of proportion. The teen’s mother said his threatening social media posts were just an atttempt to “be cool” among his friends, while his father said he had no intentions of harming anyone.
The investigation began last Friday based on social media posts, police said.
“A lot of the tips that we’ve received came from social media posts with this suspect boasting about his access to firearms and his intentions to kill and create a mass shooting incident,” said sheriff’s office Public Information Officer Carly Cappetto,
“If you could compare what we found in our evidence from this case and compare to past recent major mass shootings that we’ve had in schools, every single box was checked that something bad was going to be happening,” she added.
The teen, who has not been publicly named, remains in custody at the county juvenile detention center pending a review hearing on September 22, KOMO said.
Capetto said that it wasn’t clear how many, if any, of the guns found in the home were obtained illegally. Some had no serial numbers, making them “untraceable,” and some appeared to be 3D printed.
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[Featured image: Pierce County Sheriff’s Office]
