Did you hear about the thankfully thwarted ISIS-inspired bombing attack on a Utah high school?
Probably not. The media doesn’t much like to report on school attacks when instead of guns, anything re: Islam is involved. A high school student from St. George has been charged with bringing a homemade explosive device to Pine View High School Monday. More charges are expected for the vandalism at Hurricane High School, where he destroyed an American flag and replaced it with an ISIS flag, then spray painted “ISIS is coming” on the school’s exterior.
FOX13 Because he is a minor, police did not release his identity.
Someone took down the American flag at Hurricane High School last Thursday morning and replaced it with an ISIS flag. He also spray painted the message, “ISIS is comi” on the wall of the school. Police now believe the suspect, in that case, is the same suspect who left a suspicious package at Pine View High School in St. George. According to students a bag was found near a vending machine and was smoking and sizzling.
Wednesday, officials with Utah State Courts stated the teen was booked on charges of possession or use of a weapon of mass destruction as a first-degree felony, threat of terrorism as a third-degree felony, graffiti as a third-degree felony, and abuse of a flag as a class B misdemeanor.
Authorities responded to the school after a student reported to a school resource officer that they saw a suspicious backpack that was smoking. Several law enforcement officers responded to the scene, including a bomb squad K-9 unit.
“After examining the device, bomb squad members indicated that if it had detonated; the device had the potential to cause significant injury or death,” The St. George Police Department wrote in a statement. “The device was disarmed and a suspect was identified.”
In a statement released on Facebook the police department wrote:
“The suspect was a juvenile male attending a class at Pine View High School. A warrant was served on the residence of that juvenile and items were located that were consistent with the materials used to build the device placed at Pine View. Based on our investigation we can confirm this was a failed attempt to detonate a homemade explosive at the school. It was also determined that the male had been researching information and expressing interest in ISIS and promoting the organization.”
Police said initially the suspect was arrested on charges of manufacture, possession, sale, use or attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction prohibited. More charges may be pending to include charges of criminal mischief from the Hurricane Police Department for an incident that occurred at Hurrican High School on Feb. 15. The Hurricane Police Department said the same suspect was wanted for allegedly replacing an American flag with an ISIS flag at the school.
Students from Pine View High School said that a student who was identified as the suspect was exhibiting strange behavior during the incident.
“He was walking around frantically nervous. He had a hat on really low covering his face almost,” said Olivia Jones, a senior at the school. “They hadn’t evacuated the seminary building for some reason and [the] kid was hysterically laughing which is really unusual and they later evacuated seminary building.”
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