Police confirmed Tuesday they have thwarted a student’s plot to carry out a mass shooting at a Southern California high school.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department revealed that a security guard at El Camino High School in Whittier overheard a “disgruntled student” threaten to unleash gunfire on the school last Friday, just two days after 17 people were killed in the Florida high school shooting.
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Deputies with the Norwalk sheriff’s station responded to the school on Friday to investigate a criminal threats call issued by school officials at the warning of the security officer.
When deputies conducted a search of the student’s home, they found “multiple guns and ammunition,” Sheriff’s spokesperson Nicole Nishida told The Associated Press.
Robert Jacobsen, general counsel for Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District, told the Whittier Daily News that the school safety officer heard the student threaten to bring a gun when he returned to the school. When questioned by officials, Jacobson said the student didn’t have a weapon on him.
The student’s disturbing remarks came after he and a teacher had a disagreement because he brought headphones to school, and students are not allowed to have electronic devices out during class time, Jacobsen said.
“It was a threat to come back and bring a gun,” he said.
The district sent a full team of education professionals, which included the superintendent, the director of student and family services, the assistant director of alternative education, a school counselor and a district specialist, to the school to talk to the student. Within 45 minutes of the incident, law enforcement was also notified and was present on the scene.
Jacobsen said he thought the student had been arrested, but a sheriff’s detective would not confirm whether that had happened as of Tuesday.
Authorities did not provide further information on Tuesday, but a press conference is scheduled to be held on Wednesday.
The threat toward the California school came only two days after a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida opened fire on students and staff, killing 17 people.
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