On Wednesday, Sept. 30, just one day, 24 hours before the mass shooting that occurred at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, Tuolumne County Sheriff’s deputies were contacted by the administration at Summerville High School in the town of Tuolumne, Calif.
According to a statement released by the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Department, school officials reported three students were plotting an attack on faculty members and students at the school. Through the course of the investigation, a fourth student was identified.
Parents in Tuolumne County are just now beginning to realize how close they came to experiencing the same state of grief and bewilderment that families and loved ones in Roseburg, Oregon are trying to cope with. They learned on Saturday, when Tuolumne County Sheriff Jim Mele held a press conference, and described the details of the plot.
After the initial call to the Sheriff’s Department, the investigation moved swiftly, with two warrants being served. The Modesto Bee reports that on Saturday, the sheriff said authorities found “evidence verifying a plot to shoot staff and students at Summerville High School.” Mele said the plot was detailed and included a list of victims, locations, and methods for the attack.
“They were going to come on campus and shoot and kill as many people as possible on the campus,” Mele said. “It is particularly unsettling when our most precious assets —which are our students, their teachers — are targets for violence.”
The sheriff emphasized the plot was foiled while still in its early stages, and no one has been hurt. He said all four teenagers confessed to their involvement in the plot in statements to investigators. The sheriff had high praise for students and faculty who stepped forward when they heard talk about the plot, which seems to happen in most of our school shootings.
“I believe, with all my heart, the reason we were able to stop this was because we have a level of trust within our community,” Mele said. “When you have a level of trust with the law enforcement, your education – we meet monthly, we meet constantly – you can do this.”
All four students have been charged with conspiracy to commit an assault with deadly weapons. As is usual in these cases involving a juvenile, their names and grade levels have not been released to the public. Three students were arrested at school on Wednesday, and the fourth was arrested on Friday.
Mele said students overheard the plot being discussed at school and alerted the faculty. Evidence later found included paperwork with statements and a list of potential victims including “several students and/or staff” who would “be the targets” at an upcoming event on campus. No weapons were found, but the four students were in the process of acquiring them.
“(They were) pretty dog-gone close. (Close) enough to keep me up last night, to keep my detectives and lieutenants up last night. There was an event that would be coming up that they specifically talked about,” Mele said. “To talk about specifically what, I don’t want to, but enough to move forward … that we took four children away from their homes in order to protect other children.”
Investigators are also contacting the parents of children whose names were on the “hit list.” This information has parents alarmed, with many not wanting to know, but still worried that their child could have died if the plot had succeeded.
“The thought about my daughter being on that list makes me sick,” Kristin Wilson told a local radio station, according to the Washington Post. “Do I want to know? Do I not? I don’t know.”
