Gun Incident
On the morning of Thursday, April 30, 2009, a student from Covina High School was arrested at his house for possession of a loaded gun in a school campus. A second student was arrested during school hours. Police said two suburban high school students had a pair of loaded handguns, a drawing depicting a killing and the intention of randomly shooting people on campus. The students' plot was discovered before it could be enacted.
The boys, ages 15 and 16, were charged Friday after the older student's stepfather contacted West Covina police to say his guns were missing from a gun locker. They had taken the weapons onto the campus of Covina High School three times and told investigators they were considering using them, West Covina police Lt. Ron Mitchell said.
"Due to the interviews, we were of the mind that they were, at some point, they were going to randomly shoot people at school.
The 16-year-old was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, grand theft of a firearm, being a minor in possession of a handgun, and having a firearm on campus. The other boy, 15, faced the same charges except for grand theft, and was instead charged with receiving stolen property, said Los Angeles County district attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. Covina High School Principal Claudia Karnoski said she conducted her own investigation. The boys had shown the loaded guns to three or four friends, who failed to alert teachers, apparently because they didn't want to get into trouble. One of the suspects had commented to the group that they should shoot people during a campus assembly that happened just before spring break, which started April 6. The principal said the incident was serious, though the plot was not carefully planned.
People will automatically think it was a Columbine-type plan. I am not downplaying it, but I don't think it was to that elevation.
Claudia KarnoskiKarnoski said each boy was "like one of the everyday kids" at Covina High, a school of 1,500, and they had not been in trouble before. She said there was no indication of any grudge against staff members or students. The boys, whose identities were not released because they are juveniles, were arrested, one at home and the other at school. Mitchell did not know if the boys had been assigned attorneys and they remained in juvenile custody.
Besides a Glock .40-caliber handgun and a Smith & Wesson .357-caliber handgun, police found several rounds of rifle ammunition with the boys but no rifle. Investigators also seized a drawing one of the boys allegedly made depicting a hooded figure shooting another character in the head. Underneath the drawing, the word "Exterminate" was written.
Karnoski said the boy who drew that was a keen artist and had notebooks filled with all kinds of sketches. "It is disturbing, I don't know what it referred to."
The incident marked the first time the Covina-Valley Unified School District had experienced guns on campus, officials said.
Read more about this topic: Covina High School
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