Inside an averted school shooting plot
Inside an averted school shooting plot
An Ohio high school student conspired with an adult in another state to commit a complex attack involving anesthetic gases, disabling CCTV, killing 8 targets, and kidnapping other students to rape.
On February 8, 2024, a 14-year-old male student in Cincinnati, Ohio was arrested for plotting a school shooting at Mariemont High School. Prosecutors have charged the teenager with conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. A student who heard about the plot reported it to his father who notified police.
Text messages released by the Hamilton County prosecutors’ office show conversations between the student and a man in his 20s who lives in Colorado Springs (near Columbine) during a five day period between January 13-18. The man has not been identified or arrested (yet).
This is an important plot to explore in more detail because of the complexity and multiple elements that differ from prior attacks:
Target eight specific students on a hitlist
Use “anesthesia gas” to incapacitate everyone in the building
Disable school surveillance cameras
Use a gun owned by the student’s father
Wear two sets of clothing to change quickly after the attack
Plan A: Adult would commit the attack on a day when the 14-year-old student was not at the school.
Plan B: Bring two “sets of gear” a commit attack together.
School Profile
Mariemont High is among the top public schools in the state of Ohio. Located in the Cincinnati suburbs, the school of ~500 students ranks:
#164 in National Rankings
#3 in Ohio High Schools
+95% graduation rate
99.07/100 on the US News scorecard
Students are 92% white with no free and reduced lunch program and 14-1 teacher ratio. A School Resource Officer is assigned to the campus.
Text Messages
These eight screenshots of text messages were released by the Hamilton County, Ohio prosecutor’s office. The 14-year-old student is the green messages on the right and the adult man in Colorado is the black messages on the left.
Notes: Student is asking the adult to commit the attack.
Notes: Student wants the adult to commit the attack when he isn’t at the school. The student then asks for the adult to bring a second gun and second set of gear so that he can participate in the attack.
Notes: Student goes back to telling the adult that he wants the attack to happen when he isn’t there. Student then tells the adult that he will participate, have a second set of clothing to change quickly to escape, and they need to target the school office first.
Notes: Student plans to turn off the cameras and release anesthetic gas so they freely walk around the school to find targets.
Notes: Student adds another target to the hitlist (prosecutors said eight students were the targets).
Notes: Student appears to have researched anesthetic gases because he knows they are invisible and people will not wake up if there is a constant supply of gas (luckily he doesn’t know how much gas would be required to sedate all of the occupants inside a large building).
Notes: Student is driving the timeline.
Notes: Student plots to release gas, erase CCTV footage, kill specific students while they are sedated, and then kidnap attractive students to rape (censored) later.
Good and Bad News for School Security
Most school shooters act alone, are actively suicidal, and plan to die during their attack. These attacks are usually a violent public suicide without an escape plan that comes at the end prolonged trauma and crisis.
This attack plot in Ohio is a targeted set of assassinations with a rape fantasy rather than a suicidal rampage with random victims:
Target specific people on hitlist
Turn off the cameras to avoid being detected or identified
Use gases to debilitate everyone, kill targets, and kidnap attractive students to rape
Wear two sets of clothing to quickly change and escape
The good news is that anesthetic gases are not easily accessible and school officials would spot a huge truck full of gas tanks being unloaded and setup around the building.
The bad news is this plot does not follow the pattern of prior attacks. School shooters are often described as “copycats” of prior plots. This plan shows innovation and creativity (in a bad way).
School shooters frequently have plans with greater aspirations than the outcome of the actual attack. The Columbine assailants planned for a bigger bombing than the OKC government building attack in 1996. The Oxford, MI high school shooter wrote in his journal that he planned to use Molotov cocktails. After being taken to the guidance councilor’s office and nearly being caught with the gun, his committed the attack that day instead of going home to get his other supplies.
School officials and police need to consider that attacks at schools may include other hazards like flammable liquids and improvised explosives. It’s extremely dangerous for students to lockdown inside a classroom during a attack involving fires, chemicals, or explosives. Following the recommendations in the DOJ report on Uvalde, this is another reason that students and staff need to rapidly evacuate from the building when shots are fired.
What’s Next?
The Ohio student is being held in a juvenile detention center and will be assessed for mental health issues. A pretrial hearing is set for Feb. 21. We should learn more details about the plot and hopefully the arrest of the adult in Colorado.
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David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a national expert on school shootings. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and Iowa Public Radio the day after the Perry High shooting.