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Boy and girl are charged with plot to shoot up school
Youngsters targeted Chimacum facility
Thursday, March 16, 2000
By GORDY HOLT and RUTH SCHUBERT
CHIMACUM -- Neighbors said it "must be some kind of misunderstanding."
They intended to kill classmates, teachers and school administrators in a plot that began unraveling two weeks ago, prosecutors said.
As outlined by Deputy Prosecutor Michael Haas, the plot was the boy's idea, but the girl refined it during a telephone call.
"A few minutes into the conversation, (the girl) . . . made suggestions for foolproofing the plan," Haas explained. "Specifically, she suggested (the boy) obtain silencers to use in the massacre . . . and to cut phone lines."
Police also said they have a note detailing the plan, written by the girl to another student.
The note says the shooting would start in the school office, and that one person would be shot 15 times in the head. Telephone lines would be cut, and walkie-talkies would be used for communication, according to an affidavit filed by sheriff's Detective Joe Nole.
"As far as we can tell, they wanted to (shoot) administration people in general, one specific juvenile and one classroom," Haas said.
"It did not appear that the female planned to take part in the shooting, but there is an indication she planned to be involved in cutting telephone lines."
One trip to Tacoma was aborted when the boys had to abandon a car they had stolen from their grandfather after it was spotted by police. On Feb. 19, they made it to Tacoma but discovered the gang members were in jail. It's unclear whether the gang would have had weapons to deal; the boys went home empty-handed.
Their talk about the plan led to an investigation.
"Thank God," said Chimacum School District Superintendent Mary Lynne Derrington.
Derrington said word of the alleged plot leaked out when a student overheard the talk and reported it to a staff member.
The boy charged yesterday told police he was angry at classmates and teachers at the middle school, and wanted to get even for something.
A Port Townsend resident, the boy attended the school by permission -- which was revoked two weeks ago. Derrington said two Chimacum Middle School girls also were expelled because of the incident. Authorities wouldn't say who they were or provide other details.
The boy's cousin did not attend school in either district, said Port Townsend School District Superintendent Carol Andreasen.
Haas said the two students were not charged as adults because of their youth. If the students are convicted, prosecutors will seek to keep them in custody until they are 21. The standard sentencing range for juveniles convicted of the Class A felony is 15 to 36 weeks.
The boy was in custody yesterday afternoon and the girl had not yet been picked up, Jefferson County Prosecutor Juelanne Dalvall said.
Their names were not released by prosecutors because of their ages, Dalvall said. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer does not name juveniles charged with crimes in most cases.
The Chimacum School District, with 1,740 students, stretches from the southern boundary of the Port Townsend School District down the Olympic Peninsula to Dabob Bay, and serves a diverse population.
Its communities range from a low-income belt in and around Chimacum and Irondale, south past the posh reaches of Port Ludlow to Shine, a rapidly changing, old neighborhood of saltwater views and double-wide housing where three-car garages are pushing out the carports.
Shine is where the girl, her parents and two sisters live, and where two next-door neighbors, husband and wife, expressed shock yesterday. They stood on their front porch, a stunning view of Hood Canal behind them.
"My heart's breaking for those people," the woman said. "Must have been just a childish thing, something to impress a boy."
"These are nice people," said her husband. "Their girls mean everything to them. They took them everywhere; to basketball games, you name it."
At the girl's house, blinds were drawn and a black dog barked from behind a back fence; no one answered the door.
No one answered the door at the boy suspect's home on E Street in Port Townsend, where undraped windows revealed the opposite of the tidy house on the narrow lane in Shine.
Clothes, shoes and bedding could be seen strewn about the floor and on a stairway. An ironing board was piled high with more clothes.
Next-door neighbor Doris Merrill said she did not know the family, but once had seen the boy -- "who looked terrified" -- hide behind her house.
Across a side street, another neighbor would not identify herself but said she knew the boy's grandparents.
"I think 'murder' is a bit extravagant," she said of the prosecutors' charge. "But these days, you can't take a chance, can you?"
Chimacum and Port Townsend school officials would not talk in detail about the suspects, citing privacy concerns.
Part-time security officer Gary Ingersoll, who has two children of his own in district schools, said the boy "had had problems in Port Townsend" before arriving at Chimacum.
But Chimacum Middle School Principal Kathy Wales said her district does not accept transfers without checking out disciplinary problems.
"We do a pretty good check on interdistrict transfer students," Wales said.
History teacher Barb Aldrich, after saying that she didn't want to violate the privacy of the students or the school, said that she hadn't had any problems with the students allegedly involved.
"There's nothing I can say that would shed any light on them," Aldrich said.
The indictments came as a surprise to many at the middle school, which shares a campus with the elementary and high schools in town.
Ingersoll, who said he often picks up rumors and complaints from the students, knew nothing about the alleged plot.
Although some teachers said they felt secure knowing that the alleged conspirators are in custody, Ingersoll for one remains a bit nervous.
"I'm looking at everybody and really making a point of getting to know the loners this week," he said.
Doug Anglin, who manages a gas-and-feed store just south of the three-school Chimacum complex, said he had heard about the threats several weeks ago but was shocked at yesterday's news.
"You gotta feel for kids like that who can't cope," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
P-I reporter Gordy Holt can be reached at 206-448-8156 or gordyholt@seattle-pi.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
But Jefferson County prosecutors yesterday charged a 12-year-old Port Townsend boy and a 14-year-old female classmate from Shine with conspiracy to commit murder in an alleged plot to shoot up Chimacum Middle School.
Chimacum Middle School students pour into buses at the end of the school day yesterday. Two students have been charged with conspiracy to shoot up the school in what was described as an act of revenge.
Mike Urban/P-I
It was unclear yesterday if the youths had the ability to carry through with the plot. Authorities said the boy and a 14-year-old cousin did attempt to obtain guns from the cousin's friends, who were identified as gang members in Tacoma. But that plan came unhinged almost from the start.
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