Emails to local high schools threatened violence worse than 'Columbine or Sandy Hook'
By Benjamin Paulin/The Brockton Enterprise
Emails that were sent to Brockton and Whitman-Hanson high schools in recent weeks threatened violence worse than "Columbine or Sandy Hook."
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"I'm informing you about my cruel intentions so hopefully I can be stopped in time," one of the threatening emails read. "I plan to kill every student and teacher in sight."
Read the emails (Warning graphic and disturbing)
Our news partners at the Brockton Enterprise reported Tuesday that the emails, released last week by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee, were believed to have been sent by a teen from South Nashville, Tennessee. They were sent to multiple schools in Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The teen, whose identity and age were not disclosed by authorities because he is a minor, was arrested by the FBI last week and is facing federal charges.
Locally, the emails were received by Brockton and Whitman-Hanson high schools, as well as Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton.
The emails had subject lines titled "Explosives On School Property !!" and "An Absolute Tragedy To Be Remembered."
Specific weapons -- hydrogen bombs and a Mosin Nagant rifle -- were mentioned.
Brockton High School Principal Sharon Wolder was named in one of the emails.
"If all goes well, well, it will be a Columbine or Sandy Hook like massacre but far worse," an email read.
In 1999, two students of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killed 12 people in a shooting spree at the school and injured many more.
In 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and shot and killed 26 children and faculty members. The two incidents are among the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
The teen who allegedly sent the emails is a student at Johnson Alternative School in Nashville. The school's website says it "provides an opportunity for students, who would otherwise be excluded due to expulsion from school, to continue their educational experience."
The teen had been expelled from Antioch, Glencliff and Cane Ridge high schools in Tennessee, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed by the FBI. The three schools also received threats allegedly from the teen.
It is unclear if he has any ties or connection to the schools in Massachusetts.