A juvenile threatened a shooting at Grand Junction High School last Thursday, only a day after the recent Florida shooting. The juvenile’s name has been redacted in the police report supplied to The Criterion, due to the fact that they are a minor.
The principal of GJHS called the police at 12:47 p.m. Thursday to report concerns that the juvenile had talked to another student over Facebook Messenger about “shooting other students,” according to the police report. It began when the message recipient had asked the suspect if he’d heard about the shooting which took place in Florida. The suspect replied that it had been “pathetic” and that there were “only 17 killed.” He said, “I could have done better.”
Messages were found from the suspect saying he would “get the help of other people and collapse all the entrances to the school and ‘mow everybody down,’” according to the report. He said that he would “cleanse the world of everyone who didn’t think like him.”
That same day, police took custody of his phone and laptop computer. They brought in the suspect’s parents and learned that the only gun the suspect has is a paintball gun that doesn’t work and that there are multiple guns in the residence, all secured.
According to the police report, the suspect was found on inappropriate websites on his personal computer on Feb. 8 and was told he could no longer use that personal computer. That same day, he was caught on a school computer in a control center that students aren’t allowed to access. He refused to follow instructions and became confrontational with teachers. He was suspended and later expelled on Feb. 12.
GJHS student Sydney Egan said that several students are upset by the incident and that the subject is hot on social media currently.
“Most of them are very upset that there’s not protection so that we have to go to school and be afraid of getting shot at instead of learning and getting an education,” Egan said. She was also upset that the students were kept in the dark instead of being warned of the situation.
“Lots of us didn’t even know that our student planned to do that, so that was kind of an issue as well, that the school district didn’t communicate that with us because that’s kind of our safety at risk,” Egan said.
“It was just really low-key,” said GJHS student Micah Wilcox. “The teachers didn’t bring it up at all. We got a call after school on Friday about it, but it happened Thursday, so they didn’t let us know the day it happened.”
Since the incident, two additional security people have been added at each high school in the district, as well as Fruita 8/9, according to School District 51.
“We are looking in the future to hire more people who would just be our own staff and that would be in the next couple of months,” Emily Shockley from the District 51 communications department said. Neither Egan or Wilcox were aware of these plans.
