Eastern Washington school authorities came upon a Fort Colville Elementary School fifth-grader who had a stolen gun and knife in his backpack.
On February 7, both weapons were found by a teacher after a fourth-grader reported that he had seen an older boy with the knife.
The 10-year-old student was reportedly connected to an 11-year-old student, and they were both allegedly planning to murder an ex-girlfriend. Both boys confessed about their murder plot last week — they were planning to stab and murder a female student they found annoying.
Fort Colville Elementary School in Colville, Washington. Photo via colsd.com
The boys were planning to stab the female student off-campus with a 3.25-inch knife and scare off anyone else with a .45-caliber Remington automatic handgun. As it turns out, the female student once dated the 11-year-old boy.
However, the boy looked to kill her since she made fun of him during their relationship.
Colville School District Superintendent Michael Cashion gave a statement on the murder plot to The Spokesman Review:
We’ve been told that the boys had a plan to kill an ex-girlfriend – I don’t know what a girlfriend means in 5th grade – and harm other students. There was no list, but names were given to the police. I can’t get my mind around it.
The older boy reportedly spoke to an officer about the girl and why he wanted to kill her:
Yes, and I wanted to kill her alone at first.
The younger boy reportedly retrieved the gun from his older brother. The older brother then told the authorities that he himself had previously stole the gun from his dead grandfather’s home.
Two weeks before the students were caught, they told another student about their plans. In order to keep that student quiet, they were willing to give him $80.
Both students also prepared to kill six more students at their school. Each student was going to be lured away from the school grounds one at a time. According to court documents, both students identified their targets from a class list provided by school authorities.
The boys will participate in a capacity hearing next Wednesday. Tim Rasmussen, the Stevens County prosecuting attorney, told CNN that they won’t be tried as adults.
Rasmussen made note of the Washington state law to CNN, which states that children between the ages of eight and 12 are presumed to not have a capacity to commit a crime. He also commented on next week’s court proceedings:
What this hearing will determine is they will look at certain factors and try to get these children under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court.
A Colville school district report cited the school’s bullying record:
4 Suspensions for Bullying; 0 Tobacco; 0 Alcohol; 0 Illicit Drug Expulsion; 2 Suspensions for Fighting without Major Injury; 0 Suspensions and Expulsions for Violence without Major Injury; Suspensions and Expulsion for Violence with Major Injury; 3 Suspensions for Knife or Dagger; 2 Suspensions for other weapon, June 2012 Report